


turkey pie kiss firework

by strongandlovestofic



Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Kiss, First... a lot of things tbh, M/M, Mature Competent Professional Gays, Meet the Family, Pining, Road Trips, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Thanksgiving, oh yeah also
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2020-02-23 18:41:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18707752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strongandlovestofic/pseuds/strongandlovestofic
Summary: Your conversation with your mom is less informative than your conversation with your sister. You text:> Hey so are you kicking me out of the house for Thanksgiving or whatShe responds:> Dont put it like that>But yes>Hv fun w/the gberts!Followed by a series of emoji: a turkey, a pie, a kiss, and a firework.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [astralglitter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralglitter/gifts), [fiveyearmission](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiveyearmission/gifts), [Satan_i](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satan_i/gifts), [highoctane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/highoctane/gifts), [and cate](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=and+cate).



> this......... took forever but it's here now and i'm so happy to share it with you. thank you to the gang for all the cheerleading, and of course to fiveyearmission, who gave me the permission to completely rewrite the first ~7k words of it so it was better. ENJOY! ♥
> 
> also heads up, i'm trying a new thing where i post new fic unlocked for a bit before locking it. let's see how it goes! (fyi tho, if you want to read any of my other fic, it's locked. the chaptered fic will go unlocked when a new chapter goes up tho!)

_> So you’re going to Brian’s for Thanksgiving, iirc? Mom says she wants you both for Christmas._

It's 2pm on October 16th.

You stare at the text message from your sister and try to place it, try to determine the context for her texting you this out of the blue on a Tuesday.

You send her a quick, _Rhi what_ , and go back to editing the fighting styles video you’re working on. You've been screenshotting any good angles of Snake's ass and sending them to Allegra over Slack. ( _You’re going to Brian’s for Thanksgiving, right?_ )

Allegra responds, _I will be disappointed if all of these aren’t in the final video patrick_ , and you send her one of Snake very nearly doing the Strong Female Character pose. ( _Mom wants you both for Christmas._ ) Her laugh’s loud enough to fill the office, and Simone leans over to stare at your screen — which is just a sea of ass at this point. ( _Brian’s for Thanksgiving._ )

Your phone chimes again and you take a moment to stare at Snake’s glistening glutes before trying to figure out what the fuck Rhiannon’s talking about. Not that her follow-up texts are any actual help:

_> That’s what Mom told me to tell you. Idk ask her._

_> Also Dad says you’re required to bring good cheese as a thank you gift or our ancestors will be disappointed in you_.

==

Your conversation with your mom is even less informative than your conversation with Rhi. You text:

> _Hey so are you kicking me out of the house for Thanksgiving or what_

She responds:

 _> Dont put it like that_  
> _But yes_  
> _Hv fun w/the gberts!_

Followed by a series of emoji: a turkey, a pie, a kiss, and a firework.

==

You sit on this whole thing for half a month, until it’s the first week of November and if you’re not going to Brian’s for Thanksgiving (you’re not, of course you’re not) you’ve gotta start planning your trip to Maine or start telling your parents you’re just staying home. (That’ll be a conversation.)

“Hey, so, uh.” Your verbosity is unchallenged by mortal man. “My mom’s somehow under the impression that I’m going to – this is weird and stupid – that I’m going to your family Thanksgiving this year?”

You’re sitting in the kitchen banging out ideas for Unraveled (“Someone suggested ranking Bioware romance options,” Brian mentions with a — distracting wiggle of his eyebrows) and tournament ideas for Twitch streams (Brian keeps coming back to versus mode in Overcooked 2: “Pat, I swear to God there will be a murder live on stream, we _have_ to,” and the gleam in his eyes reminds you of the more manic moments in Gill & Gilbert). You’ve got a warm cup of coffee between your hands and you’ve been hoping the caffeine will grant you insight into the choices you’ve made in your life that have brought you to this moment, but so far: no dice.

You never responded to your mom’s texts. Because – the thing is, your mom, like all mothers over a certain age, really got into emojis at some point and there’s been no helping it. But she’s never used a fucking kiss emoji in the context of you having a nice time at a coworker’s house for an important family holiday; and while it may be stupid as hell that you’re focusing on it, you are. And it’s innocuous. There’s nothing to it — you’re not trying to figure out the deeper meaning behind the firework emoji. You can’t _firework Brian_. You’re not going to kiss…

“Which is stupid,” you say, because Brian hasn’t responded in the 5 seconds since you first introduced the topic, and you need to interrupt your own Goddamn thought processes because. Because. “Because it’s, uh, Thanksgiving. And I have no idea why they’d think that, ha.”

Of all the shit you’ve told your parents about your coworkers, about Brian, raising the prospect of inviting him – inviting anyone – back for the holidays has not come up. You haven’t told them a lot anyway. They’ve seen most of your videos. (God, they’ve seen most of your videos.) They’ve seen most of _Brian’s_ videos — you mentioned you and him had made a really delightfully stupid one about shoes to Rhi and the next talk with your dad had involved several long minutes about “millennial absurdist humor” and Old Bay seasoning.

Brian glances up from his battered, dog-eared notebook, looking at you over the rims of his glasses. His button-down brings out the green in his eyes. He frowns, and see, right, that’s the correct response, confusion, except then his expression crinkles up into a kind of surprised dismay, and that’s — also the correct response, but it has the added benefit of making you feel shitty for some reason. (Who the fuck would want you at their family Thanksgiving?)

“Oh _no_ , Pat Gill,” Brian says, and he goes from that discomfiting expression to laughter, unlocking his phone to look for something. “Whoomp, there it is,” he continues, and he holds his phone towards you so you read the — oh. _Oh_. That text, the one he sent his mom back in August from the Mothergunship stream when he “asked” her if you could come to Thanksgiving and she called you witty. Oh God, why did your family take that seriously? (Was Mrs. Gilbert taking it seriously?)

“Well that, that solves it then. Good one, Mrs. Gilbert,” you say. You can tell your mom she misunderstood, that it was a joke, and then — the added benefit will be you never have to ask her why she thought it _wasn’t_ a joke. Why she said Brian should come home with him for Christmas.

“I mean,” Brian says, and he looks to the side quickly, like he’s checking for an audience, “you’re, you’re definitely welcome. If you want? My mom wouldn’t kid about that kind of thing — before she moved, we’d invite everybody over, it was a huge thing. There was so much food, Pat.” He’s got a small smile on his face, turning up one corner of his mouth, and you force yourself to look at his whole, uh, his whole face, not just his... “We’ll probably be conscripted into renovating something: the house wasn’t damaged by the hurricane but it was a fixer-upper from the get-go. And, and even mandatory construction projects aside, I’d — we’d show you a good time.”

You nod, clearing your throat. ( _You going to Brian’s for Thanksgiving? He’d show you a good time._ ) You’ll thank him for the invitation, and you can spend the next month not thinking about what it would have been like, if you’d —

“It’d be nice if you came,” he says, and you notice the tips of his ears are red. He doesn’t really get embarrassed — you’re not sure that it’s something he’s even capable of, all that charm and talent buoying him through everything. But his ears are red.

“I mean,” you say, and you smile humorlessly, like there’s nothing you can do. (What’d Thomas call that smile? The straight man smile. Right. The fucking straight man.) “Yeah, I mean, my family’s already decided I’m going, so, uh.”

And Brian’s smile spreads to his whole face, and you don’t stare at his mouth or his ears, and you don’t think about how happy it makes you, putting that smile there. How _good_ it feels.

You return his smile and you feel the back of your fucking neck go warm. “So why not?”

==

“The cheapest flights are…” Brian winces as soon as the page loads. “Okay, $400 roundtrip. That’s...doable?”

What he doesn't say is that “doable” probably includes his mom chipping in for Brian and Laura's fares, and you hopefully figuring something out. (You remember being 24; you're reading between the lines.) You don’t mention that you rarely have $400 to your name to fly _home_ , let alone to someone else’s house, but your expression must reflect this enough that Brian grimaces and turns back to his monitor. “ _Or_ we could drive for, like, 12 hours through holiday traffic.”

“We should’ve looked for flights in August,” you mutter, and then realize the implications of that — you would’ve taken Brian’s mom’s invite at face value, you would’ve planned to go to Brian’s instead of your own family’s for Thanksgiving, you wouldn’t have needed your mom assuming things with fireworks and kiss emojis to kick your butt into gear to. To what?

You look up from your own computer where you’ve been reviewing the route you’d need to drive from your apartment to South Carolina and Brian’s just flat-out staring at you, his eyes wide behind his glasses, his hair curling against his temples. “Yeah, we should’ve looked for flights in August,” he says, his tone soft, and you… you swallow and drop your eyes to your monitor.

Brian clears his throat, and you don’t look up at him again. “Well, we were never a big road trip family but, uh, life’s about trying new things. And twelve hours stuck in a car is definitely a new thing.”

Yeah, to say the least. This whole Goddamn venture is _new_ on an unsettling scale, but you keep your mouth shut. You’re not gonna do anything to risk the tender way Brian was just looking at you.

==

You try to pack light, but you find yourself choosing all of the nicer shirts in your closet and shoving them into your duffle bag. Then you grab t-shirts at random and shove them in too, because it’s not like you’re trying to impress anyone.

Simone’s catsitting Charlie — you dropped him off at her place last night with his food and one of your pillows — and so the only thing you have to do Wednesday morning at ass o’clock is lock your bedroom door (Craigslist roommates are only so trustworthy) and stall in the foyer of your apartment complex, wondering what in God’s name you’re doing going to Brian’s mom’s house for Thanksgiving. You’ve gone to friends’ houses for Thanksgiving before, but it was always because their parents lived in the same town you did, and your family was further out and for whatever reason you couldn’t get there. (You only did Thanksgiving with your ex’s folks… once? Twice? In the decade you were together?) You’ve definitely never traveled for it, an entire day in a car and then a long weekend spent with mostly total strangers, who apparently know you well enough to be okay inviting you to _Thanksgiving dinner_ and –

Someone’s texting you. You pull out your phone.

_> Heyyy we’re outside and you are definitively Not_

You glance up, and they’re right there, curbside, Laura waving at you from the passenger window of Brian’s shitty car. Because they could see you standing here the whole time. Goddamnit.

Laura climbs out of the front seat as you exit the building, stretching her arms above her head like she’s already been trapped in the car for too long. “You’ve got shotgun, with your long noodle legs,” she tells you, and Brian gives you a little wave from the driver’s seat and hooks a thumb towards the trunk, popping it so you can throw your duffle bag in next to a travel-worn hard shell suitcase and two huge canvas bags stuffed with clothes.

You fold your long noodle legs into the front seat and Brian barely waits for the click of your seatbelt before he’s merging back onto the street, cursing under his breath when a cab swerves around them.

The car’s lived-in but relatively clean, dry leaves and old receipts in the footwell between your boots, a half-drunk bottle of tea in the console cup holder between you and Brian. He’s got a look of intense concentration on his face as he navigates to the highway; you have an innate level of trust in Brian as a person, but your hand finds the oh shit handle above the window anyway, and you don’t let go until you’ve safely merged onto I-278.

Laura presses her knee against the back of your seat. “Shotgun’s in charge of music,” she tells you, and gestures to the cord trailing from the car's tape deck. “You can plug your phone in. Also if your taste sucks we have the means to strap you to the roof of the car for the rest of the trip.”

Brian hums. Now that you’re on the highway he seems more relaxed, though you know it’s gonna be traffic and tolls for at least the next 2 hours. “We’ve done it before.”

“I’ve been warned,” you say, and plug your phone in to the tape converter thing. It’s nice that your old shitty phone with its existent 3.5mm jack is finally coming in handy for something.

You pick one of your old workout mixes, one that doesn't get a lot of play anymore admittedly, but it starts with Hall & Oates, transitions into fucking Danzig, and has Brian singing under his breath before the first toll.

==

Road tripping with the Gilberts involves a lot of singing along to whatever’s blasting out of the speakers at the top of your lungs (Laura and Brian do a rousing rendition of _Crazy Little Thing Called Love_ , and they’re so loud that you realize they wouldn’t hear you if you sang along, so you do); playing the world’s rowdiest car-related game (“Okay,” Brian announces as you pass from Delaware to Maryland, “Anal Expedition,” and in between Laura’s peals of laughter she explains that you add a car’s model name to _anal_ and that’s — that’s the game, and you spend absolutely no time at all thinking of the way Brian’s voice bends around that fucking word, and no additional time thinking of how hard he laughs, gasping out _fuck_ under his breath, when you take advantage of a beat of silence between songs to quietly deadpan, “Anal Fiesta”); and now, debating fast food pit stop options.

“Burger King,” you say, and from behind you Laura gasps. You’re stopping for lunch and a driver swap — or you will be, as soon as you figure out where you’re eating. You’ve passed three perfectly serviceable exits. You think Brian’s doing it on purpose.

Laura leans forward between the seats. “Brian, we have to turn back, Pat likes Burger King the most. He's not allowed to come to Thanksgiving anymore.”

“The King of Burgers has his good qualities,” Brian says diplomatically, glancing at you with the beginnings of a smile, and Laura lets out another shocked gasp.

“I cannot believe — Pat, what have you done to my brother? Infected him with your weird, your weird sensibilities!”

Brian shoots you a wide grin, licking his bottom lip, and your stomach flips. You're hungry, is the thing. It's not that Brian's smile could light up the entire eastern fucking seaboard. It’s not that you had to remember not to stare at his fucking tongue.

“Hardee’s exists, you savages,” Laura says, “and Sonic.”

“Taco Bell it is,” Brian announces, taking the next exit, and Laura lets out a wail at the same time that you burst into horrified laughter:

“We're stuck in a car for another 7 hours, you asshole, that's a recipe for disaster.”

“We have stomachs of iron, and a need to gird our gastrointestinal tracts in preparation for tomorrow's feast,” Brian announces with a chaotic gleam to his eye, pulling into the parking lot of a combo Taco Bell-KFC. “And I'm craving like, 4 Doritos Locos tacos followed by uncomfortable car sleeping so y'all get to deal with it.”

Brian beelines for the restroom as soon as you’re inside so you’re left with Laura, surveying the menu. You haven’t hung out a ton with her, and never one-on-one — though this is the lowest stakes situation you’ve ever been one-on-one with somebody’s family: staring silently at a fast food menu.

You’re debating the number of Crunchwrap Supremes you want when Laura shifts back, leaning against the counter with the napkins and sauce packets. “So Bri mentioned you brought this up?”

You’re halfway to protesting that Laura was _there_ , she knows Brian’s invested in the bad decision Taco Bell, when you realize she’s speaking more holistically. She means this: Thanksgiving. The road trip. The whole fucking thing.

“Uh, I guess, in the broadest sense. Technically speaking, it was my _mom’s_ idea, I was just relaying her, uh, relaying it.”

Laura’s eyebrows shoot up and she tilts her head to the side, like it helps her think. Or like you told her something that jars with her understanding of the situation. She opens her mouth and then closes it again, and blinks at you several times. Yeah. You relate to that. You’re still trying to figure your mom out too.

“Your mom’s idea?” she finally asks, her mouth screwed up into a frown, and then Brian’s coming back from the restroom, wiping his hands on his pants, and Laura’s distracted disagreeing with him on whether Nacho Cheese or Cool Ranch is superior.

Brian says Nacho Cheese. Brian is correct. You tell Laura this, and she disinvites you to Thanksgiving for the second time in an hour.

==

Laura takes over driving from Brian, who does in fact curl up in the back, pulling his feet up onto the seat next to him and pressing his face against his knees, somehow managing this with his seatbelt on.

Laura asks you to change the music to something mellow so you don’t wake him, and you fall into a comfortable quiet while a mix of chill soundtracks plays softly through the car's tenor-heavy speakers.

An hour into her leg of the drive, Laura clears her throat and shifts in her seat, glancing over at you. “He was like a kid on Christmas Eve last night,” she says, like it’s a secret, a soft smile on her face. “I have _no_ idea what time he went to bed. Well, no, he ‘went to bed’ at midnight, but I don’t think he slept.”

“Sleep deprived is the best way to drive,” you say, and you think of Brian’s harried expression when they picked you up, like he’d already downed one cup of coffee too many that morning. You can see the curve of Brian’s cheek, catching sunlight, in the rearview mirror. “Why didn't he get any sleep?”

Laura laughs, and then clacks her tongue disapprovingly as another car goes shooting past them. “He repacked his suitcase no fewer than 3 times, while I was still awake. He's always gonna look goofy so I don’t know who he thinks he’s going to impress.” She looks at you after she says it, like she's gauging something, and whatever she determines she keeps to herself.

The conversation dies off, and you sit there in the front seat and stare out the window at the passing trees, industrial parks, huge warehouses. You can see Brian in the rearview mirror and you watch him sleep for. For God knows how long, until Laura takes an exit to get gas.

She gets out to pump and then heads into the station, and you should follow her, take a piss, at least stretch your legs, but. You look back at Brian, asleep and pretzeled up, and you feel calm and quiet right now, peaceful, and you don’t want him to wake up in an unknown town, alone. Left behind.

You stay in the car, refreshing Instagram and texting Rhi increasingly lewder anal car names (you didn’t provide any explanation for the first one, just shot off _Anal Blazer_ , and you wish you’d FaceTimed her after you’d done it so you could’ve seen that reaction) while she goes through the family’s cars and tries to horrify you in turn (“Grandma: Anal Outback”, she texts, and you have to smother your laughter with your arm). You stay in the car, and keep looking at the fluff of Brian’s hair in the rearview mirror. You stay in the car until Laura returns, and you barely catch Brian’s sleepy _what time izzit?_ as you climb out.

You ignore the way the timbre of Brian’s voice curls inside your whole fucking body and lingers there.

==

Brian’s leaning forward between the front seats, straining his seatbelt, his right hand on your seatback, his knuckles digging into your shoulder. You're planning to move. Been planning. Haven't yet.

Brian’s face is mostly in darkness, illuminated briefly every few moments by headlights of cars on the other side of the highway, and you can hear the smile coloring his voice while him and Laura brag about their mom’s pecan pie — “Janet pie, they call it,” Laura says, “as it’s transcended pecans entirely and become its own entity, personified in our mother.”

Brian's looking at you, one of the times you glance back at him. He holds your gaze, his hand warm against your shoulder, your faces fucking inches from each other, and you. It's not a big deal, it's a small car, and you've been in each other's space all day. You should look away though, because it's, it's something, it seems like something. Especially when you feel Brian's fingers flex on the seatback. He's not looking away.

“Laaast stretch,” Laura sings, and your attention's pulled to the road in time to catch the _10 miles to_ sign.

Brian keeps watching you — you can fucking see him out of the corner of your eye — for a good while longer, before sitting back, out of sight.

==

You're not sure why you expected a Gilbert homecoming to be anything but loud. Everyone shouts happily at each other. Everyone starts hugging. A dog is there.

You stand just behind the swell of affection until Mrs. Gilbert (Laura mentioned their step-dad, is she still Gilbert? Should you just call her Janet like her kids do all the time for some reason?) turns to you and opens her arms and pulls you down into a hug. “Look at you! We're so glad to have you, Patrick, actually see your face in person. I’ve heard so many good things. Goodness, let's get some meat on those bones before you leave.”

She releases you from the hug but reaches up and puts her hands on either side of your face, overly-familiar but kind of sweet. “We're gonna have to call you Brian's Pat so it doesn't get confusing,” she says, and you feel your neck go warm and you have, uh, a number of questions about that, but Laura's asking when _their_ Patrick is expected to arrive and Janet lets you go and turns to her daughter.

Brian appears at your shoulder and has — fucking lifted the huge dog into his arms, you can see the flex of his muscles under the hems of his shirt sleeves. “We can just call you Gill,” he says, his voice strained, and you focus on the dog, reaching over to ruffle his ears.

Ahead of you Laura hollers _Brian, come here and bring your Pat_ , and you feel that fucking blush spread to your face. Brian puts the dog (Moose, he calls him Moose when he sets him down) on the floor and starts off into the house, checking for you over his shoulder and giving you a quick smile when you're still standing where you were.

“C'mon, Brian's Pat,” he says, his eyes crinkling in Goddamn amusement, and you open your mouth to — what, protest? Tell him this was a fucking bad idea? Tell him you're not sure you can handle this for three days?

You don't say anything. You don't know what you'd say. It’s not like this is the first situation with him you’ve been in where you’ve felt wrongfooted, uncomfortable — but even when you’re awkward and drowning in your own social ineptitude, you know you can look to Brian for help. You know he’ll be there to anchor you, that he’ll throw you a rope, help you right yourself.

That’s just how it works between you.

You follow him.

==

Janet’s husband is asleep already — “He’ll be all apologies in the morning,” she says. “He was up at the crack of dawn going at the back porch so we don’t break our necks.” — but she's got a spread of food on the kitchen island, rolls and slices of ham and cheese and condiments.

“Should we be eating this yet?” Laura asks, but she's already grabbed a roll and is tearing it open to make a sandwich.

“It's Thanksgiving Eve,” Janet replies sagely, and slides onto one of the mismatched stools around the island. “And none of it's turkey, so we aren't breaking any laws.”

Brian clambers onto a stool that's just slightly too tall to be comfortable for eating off the countertop, and nudges a stool towards you with his foot. You sit down next to him and he passes you a plate with a roll on it. You're struck by how — domestic it feels. Sitting around a counter, being plied with food while the Gilberts catch up with each other at the edge of your attention. You stifle a yawn and pass Brian the plate of cheese.

“Thanks,” Brian says, and he covers his mouth as he yawns in response — and then turns to Janet. “I'm halfway to Snoresville, Mom, where do you want us to put our stuff?”

“You didn't see my text?” Janet asks, and sighs in a resigned sort of way, like this is business as usual. “I've got you set up on the pull-out in the den. We've only got the two guestrooms, and the one's for our Patrick and the other's only got a twin, so Laura, that's yours, I'm so sorry Erik couldn't make it, all my sweethearts with their sweethearts in one place would've been lovely. But Brian, that pull-out’s a queen, which is probably bigger than you normally get, the two of you sharing a double. It’s really about time you get an adult-sized bed, love.”

“Uh, yeah,” Brian replies slowly, frowning, and it's only his reaction that keeps you from asking Janet to explain what, uh, what the fuck that's supposed to mean. You can't catch his attention, he's not looking at you, and when you look across the table you're met with Janet's kind judgment — and Laura, looking at you curiously. Like she's waiting for you to protest or explain. Or, more damningly, like maybe she finally gets why you came for Thanksgiving.

“Oh, don't give me that face, young man, I wasn't born yesterday,” Janet chides, and as she reaches for the cheese she adds, “Now come on, you two, don't stare at me with your jaws open, use them to eat. You'll need your strength for tomorrow; we've got a full slate of festivities and football.”

“No football,” Laura bemoans, finally turning away from you back to her mom, and you would like to back the conversation up to _sweethearts_ and _the two of you sharing a double_ , but they’re already talking about soccer, the _good_ football, which apparently Janet’s grandkids are deeply involved in.

You look at Brian. Brian’s looking at his mom. What the fuck does _sharing a double_ mean.

You tear off a piece of your roll and throw it onto Brian’s plate, and raise your eyebrows when Brian looks up at you. What the fuck. Brian smiles at you, and it 100% doesn’t reach his eyes, which makes him look like he’s possessed. You mouth _what the fuck_. Brian keeps smiling like he's deranged. You're not sure you're imagining the eye twitch.

You feel like you're observing this moment from the outside. Maybe _you're_ possessed. Maybe you misunderstood her.

“I think I'm gonna turn in,” Laura says, stretching as she yawns. “Pat's getting in tonight, yeah?”

Janet glances at her watch and smiles. “Should be just landing. They're renting a car so they should be here soon.”

“Great, I'll say hi before I collapse.” Laura kisses her mom's cheek and gives her a one-armed hug, and knocks her shoulder into Brian's when she walks past him, giving you both a small smile.

You're fucking stuck in your seat. “Thanks for the, uh, for the food, Mrs… Gilbert?” God, you should've actually asked what you should call her. You should've asked her what she thought your designs toward her son are.

She smiles fondly at you, like she'd pinch your cheek if she were close enough, and waves a hand. “Sweetheart, please, call me Janet. I'm just so delighted you could come visit. Brian gushes about you all the time.”

You can see color bleeding up the back of Brian's neck, his ears. It's distracting. It's — what the fuck! You look away, back to Janet. “Oh, uh. Well, that's.”

“Thanks for the food, Mom, we should turn in too, we can say hi to Pat tomorrow, I don't suppose you've moved the den in the last year, right?” Brian hops off the stool and puts his whole plate, half-finished roll and all, in the sink.

“Honey, don't be embarrassed,” Janet objects, and then she reaches across the counter and takes your hand firmly, giving it a little squeeze. “He brought his last girlfriend to visit during Thanksgiving and it took him a couple days to stop thinking we were gonna scare her off. He'll relax soon enough.”

You nod, which. Which seems like the right thing to do in this situation, and she smiles warmly at you. Sure. Brian's last girlfriend. Not his current girlfriend. Or boyfriend. Hey, what the fuck. You feel blank, like this conversation is happening to someone else. That's what makes the most sense, because otherwise Brian's mom thinks you and Brian are. That you’re.

“I'll finish cleaning up,” she continues, pushing herself to her feet. “You boys go get ready for bed, you've had a long drive.”

“Yep, will do, we're exhausted,” Brian says, and he grabs you by the arm and ushers you out of the kitchen. The only part of you that feels grounded in reality right now is the part Brian's touching, the three inches of forearm Brian's fingers are wrapped around.

Brian leads you through the house, which is in various stages of disrepair and renovation, until you stop in a mostly finished room with a couch against a wall, the pull-out bed set up with pillows and blankets and one of those decorative throw pillows. It says “bless this mess” on it.

“Hey, Brian,” you say, and you aren't sure where to go from there. _What the fuck_ is tempting. It's literally the only thing you can think right now.

“Do you have a side of the bed you normally sleep on?” Brian asks, voice overloud in the quiet of the room, and he moves over to the bed and starts pulling blankets back. “Because I don't, so, whatever you want, that's fine with me.”

“Hey, uh. Hey Brian?” You try again. You can do this. You can form words and sentences. “Brian, does your mom think we’re.” This is the plot of a romcom and your brain literally doesn’t want to process it. “Does she think, uh, that we’re. That we're dating, Brian?”

“What?” Brian’s eyes are wide when he turns back to look at you. He’s laughing but it sounds forced. “Wait, ha, Pat, what are you talking about?”

But you've found your words again, you've figured this whole talking thing _out_. “Brian, why the — why the fuck does your mom think we’re dating?” Brian grimaces, a smile full of teeth, and starts to respond but nope, you're on a roll. “Did you — did you _tell_ your mom we're dating?”

And that gets an immediate, “No!” and Brian holding his hands up like you're a wild dog he's trying to calm. “I swear to God, I didn't, I have no idea where she got the idea, she just. She came up with it on her own.”

You do believe him. You trust Brian not to concoct some sort of weird entrapment scheme to — do what! Exactly! Fuck’s sake, yeah, this isn’t Brian’s doing. (Rhi texted you. _You're going to Brian's for Thanksgiving, right?)_ “Did you — did you _know_?” You can feel yourself running out of steam. The — frenzied energy fueling your discovery is petering out, duly slain by exhaustion and a general disbelief.

“She, she said she texted,” Brian says, and grabs his phone. He scans the screen and then closes his eyes, pained, and holds it out to you. “She must've sent it when I was asleep, I didn't, fuck, I didn't see it.”

The latest text is indeed from Janet. It reads:

_We’re putting you in the den. So as a heads up, my darling boy, while no one can get pregnant, our bedroom IS directly above where you will be sleeping. Keep that in mind._

“Oh my God.” You sit down on the edge of the pull-out. Brian slumps down next to you, and flexes his hands like he’s trying not to wring them.

“So! So. So that’s happening. This is happening. Fuck, Pat, I’m sorry.”

He flops backwards on the bed, and when you glance at him he’s got his hands deeply tangled in his hair. There's one light in the den, and it's casting deep shadows over his face, illuminating the stretch of his neck, his forearms.

You're gonna be here for three days, driving back up Saturday so you have Sunday to recover before work.

“Why does she think…” you start, and stop. You're not sure you want an answer to that question. If Brian didn't say anything, then whatever the fuck you were just doing normally was enough to make Brian's mom think… It doesn't freak you out, you're not gonna start analyzing all of your interactions for gayness, but it's. It's weird. Kind of unsettling. That she saw something...

It does explain all of Laura's questions though. God, what does _she_ think is going on?

“I dunno,” Brian says miserably, voice muffled from underneath his arms. “Maybe you only take people you're dating to Thanksgiving.”

Not if Thanksgiving is a big thing that everyone used to come to, you think. Except Brian said that wasn’t what happened anymore, so Brian’s brother has his wife. Laura normally brings her boyfriend but he couldn’t come this time. The last person _Brian_ brought was his girlfriend. Shit. Shit, you need to stop thinking about this, because you're gonna start to wonder if you, if you stare at Brian too much. If you smile too wide. Does Janet watch your videos? You know Laura does. “So what do we do?” you ask, and you look back at Brian. His shirt is rucked up, and there's an inch of belly visible above his waistband. There's a thin trail of pale hair leading down from his navel. You look at Brian's face — or what you can see of it from underneath Brian's hands.

“We can just explain,” Brian says, voice faint. “We can tell her? That you're straight? And we're not? Together?”

You can explain that you're straight and you're not together. Sure.

“Fuck, this explains so much,” Brian continues, and his arms fall to either side of his head, hands stretching up towards the couch cushions. His shirt’s ridden up further, one of his hip bones now on full display. ( _Explain that you're straight._ ) “She’d text me sometimes — remember when your mom was visiting? She asked me if you’d introduced me. I was all, sure, yeah, she was nice — your grandma was nice!”

Brian sits up, his mouth falling open, his eyes wide. “She was so delighted I’d met your grandma. How the fuck did I not put this together until now?”

Your mom had been impressed with Brian too: _he's_ _charming_ , _isn't he,_ she’d told you at dinner that night they met him, _not at all as wild as your videos make him out to be_. _You could’ve invited him along, you know_.

Your grandma had nodded, waving her fork at you. _You think I’m too old and crotchety to understand you all, but he seems like a nice boy, Patrick._ And you had — felt proud, like they were approving of… something. Brian, or you. ( _And you're not together._ )

“It'd be weird,” you say, and Brian hums in agreement, but you don't think — he's not agreeing with the right thing. He's confirming that you're straight and you're not together.

You brought up the whole Thanksgiving thing with him last month because your mom assumed. Because Rhi went along with the assumption, because your entire family maybe went along with the assumption, because apparently _Brian’s_ mom went along with the assumption. You’ve spent the last 12 hours trying not to think about Brian too much, to not look at him too much, to fucking exist in the reality where you’re straight and not together and you’re struck by the thought of how fucking simple the universe would make it if neither of those things were true.

You say, “It’d be weird to go back out there and tell her she was wrong.”

Brian doesn’t respond. You stare at the far wall, 70s wood veneer paneling and two framed paintings of ducks. They’re both mallards.

“I don’t, uh. I don’t want to make this weekend about embarrassing your mom,” you continue, and you don’t think you’re breathing anymore, and Brian’s still quiet. Fuck. Fucking shit. Goddamnit, you should gather your shit together and go crawl into the trunk of Brian’s car and stay there through Saturday because this is it, you well and truly fucked this up —

“Okay?” Brian says. His voice has gone soft and questioning, but not upset. Out of the corner of his eye, you can see his legs moving, like he’s shifting down the bed towards you.

You slide your hands over your thighs, your palms so fucking sweaty, and you can’t wrap your mind around the fact that you _offered this as an idea at all_ let alone that Brian’s entertaining it. Because that seems. That’s — that’s dangerous, isn’t it, and you tighten your hands into fists and laugh, a little too high in your throat, and say something, anything: “So what if we — what if we just pretend we’re together? Uh, for the weekend, and then you tell her we broke up in a couple weeks.”

“Uh,” Brian starts. “That's. You don't have to, uh. You don't have to do that.”

You inhale slowly, and look at Brian over your shoulder. His expression is open. His eyes are wide. He licks his lips, and you watch it happen.

“I know,” you say, and you feel like you’re standing at a precipice, hands on a rickety railing, wind at your back pushing you forward. But Brian’s next to you, and he’s not saying anything smart like _maybe we shouldn’t be on this cliff face, Pat Gill_ , so. So.

“The only problem with this plan is Laura,” Brian says, and the pragmatism of it strikes you as the funniest fucking thing in the world right now. You push your hair out of your eyes and laugh, ducking your head, because yeah, yeah, what about Laura?

And then you think about the questions she asked, about her telling you how excited Brian was, and that's. She knows you're not together, she has to, but maybe she thinks… Maybe she's been assuming too. “I think she'll go along with it,” you say, because she will. You know she will.

“Hey Laura, we're conning Mom,” Brian says, and then he laughs, and the sound of it, disbelieving but still fond, still warm, lodges in your chest. He sits up all the way, his shoulder brushing yours, and when you look at him he looks kind of manic, the same expression he had that first day of E3, when he was on the brink of overwhelmed. “I'm, if you're sure. If you're sure, I guess we're doing this?”

This is the worst idea you've ever had. You can’t stop smiling.

==

No cat’s trying to steal your pillow from you when you wake up the next morning. Your back hurts, the mattress lumpy and uneven under your shoulders. There’s a distant murmur of people talking, like there’s someone in the hall outside your apartment. There’s — oh. There’s Brian, less than a foot from you, his face turned towards you.

There are a few gaps in the ancient vinyl blinds covering the only window in the room, and light’s spilling across the bed. It’s probably what woke you up. It hasn’t woken Brian yet, which means you’re lying in bed with him, close enough to touch.

At this distance you can see each individual eyelash. The stubble he’s been threatening to turn into a moustache. The scar on his just-parted lips.

You're gonna spend the rest of the weekend pretending you're together. Pretending you're dating, that you have been dating, for a while. Maybe pretending you're in…

It's not gonna be hard. It'd be better, simpler, less — way less dangerous, if it were. But it's not gonna be hard.

“Hey,” you say. Your croaky voice seems overly loud in the quiet of the room, and you swallow before speaking again. “Hey, Brian.”

Brian’s eyes and nose scrunch up, and he hums.

“Happy Thanksgiving,” you say, and he hums again and opens his eyes. For a moment his forehead furrows and he stares at you like he’s trying to place you, and then his expression clears and he gives you a. A smile, a warm, sleepy smile, just enough to turn the edges of his mouth up.

“Happy Thanksgiving,” he replies, and you want to touch him, run your thumb along the edge of his bottom lip. See if he feels as warm as he looks.

“I think everybody else is awake. It’s only…” You consider rolling over to grab your phone, but you don’t. You don’t want to move right now and risk breaking the calm, quiet moment you’ve woken up to.

“Morning people, all of them,” Brian says regretfully, and he grimaces. “Pat got in latest and I bet him and Kristen were out of bed first. They’re gross like that.”

You hum in agreement. “I can count the number of people I trust who regularly wake up before 8AM on one hand. I am related to most of them.”

“Oh, good for me, it’s definitely after 8AM.”

Brian’s making no move to get up either. You imagine the two of you just lying here, no family or pretending or obligations. Just this — making him laugh.

Brian shifts on the bed, pulling his arm from underneath him to rest between you on the mattress. His fingers tap slowly against the flannel sheet. His blue nail polish is starting to chip. You imagine what it would feel like to slide your hand under his, to thread your fingers together.

You'll probably hold hands. That's what… that's what couples do. You'll slide your arm around his waist, hook your thumb in one of his belt loops, press your fingertips into his side.

You should get up, get dressed. Go meet the rest of Brian’s family. “Does your brother think we're together?”

“Dunno,” he says before yawning, turning his face against his pillow. “Mom may have said something by now. I can uh, introduce you: brother Pat, meet boyfriend Pat. Boyfriend Pat, brother Pat.” He looks up at your through his eyelashes, and the words _boyfriend Pat_ worm their way into your chest and stretch out roots. Lodge there.

Fuck.

You imagine the two of you walking into the kitchen, the rest of Brian’s family already talking, eating breakfast. You imagine Laura’s shrewd gaze, and Janet’s fond, open smile as she takes the both of you in. You imagine sitting next to Brian, leaning into him, wrapping your arm around his shoulder.

You imagine pretending you're pretending.

“How do we uh, how do we play this?”

“God, right,” Brian says. He wiggles his fingers. “Um, how much are you, not that it's all on you, but — what are you comfortable with? I'm pretty handsy?” He frowns. You want to reach across the space between you and smooth out his forehead. “Not the right… tactile, I mean. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

You think about what him being _handsy_ would entail. You roll onto your back. “Maybe we should, uh. Maybe we should get dressed first.” _Before figuring out how much I want you to touch me_.

“Oh, oh, God, yeah.” Brian laughs, and pushes himself up. “Sorry, sure.”

You grab your toothbrush and your clothes, and bolt from the room just as Brian’s pulling his shirt off.

==

Janet’s voice rings out bright and too-awake as soon as you walk into the kitchen. “Good morning, layabouts!”

The kitchen already smells like Thanksgiving, cinnamon and ginger and onions. Janet’s wearing a plain white apron, bustling around between the counter and the stove, and the rest of the Gilberts — and a man you assume is Brian's step-dad — are seated around the island. There’s pastries and fruit and plates, and Brian slides your hands together and squeezes. You stay standing there like a dumbass when he lets go and heads to one of the two empty chairs, feeling the phantom pressure of his fingers.

 _So, the basics._ Brian had gnawed on his bottom lip. You'd caught a glimpse of tongue. He'd nodded. _Holding hands, being all up in each other's spaces. Yea or nay? Because that's kind of, well, baseline_.

“Pat, Kristen, this is uh, the other Pat in my life,” Brian says when you slide onto the stool next to him. “I have to see him literally every day, so don’t scare him off.”

“Hey, other Pat,” Patrick (you’re gonna have to call him Patrick, it’s weird enough as-is) says, and you laugh at how — fucking ridiculous this is, and lean over to shake his hand across the table. You meet Kristen, Patrick’s wife, and Rich, Janet’s husband, and Rich mentions his son and family will be on their way from the motel soon enough.

Somehow you hadn’t put together there would be non-Gilberts at this. To be fair, you also hadn’t considered how many Gilberts there were. You, you hadn’t fully quantified exactly how many people you’d need to swindle.

Brian seems to sense your impending breakdown because he bumps his shoulder into yours and stays close, close enough that when you move too you’re leaning into him.

 _I’m not gonna freak out, if that’s what you’re asking_ , you’d said. _I can handle a little mano-a-mano_.

 _I am at least 65% sure that is_ not _what that means_ , Brian had replied, but he’d laughed as he’d said it.

“We’ve decided we’re calling you our Pat and him Brian’s Pat,” Laura says helpfully to her brother, and you really need to corner her. Brian needs to corner her. She’s watching the both of you like any second now she's gonna announce to her family and God that you're fucking liars, but only if you don't keep amusing her.

“Ofbrian,” Kristen suggests, and Janet laughs as she hovers over the stove stirring something that smells absolutely incredible, “If we want to be gross and weird about it.”

“When _don’t_ we,” Patrick says, and then they’re off debating the merits of Margaret Atwood and the show you haven’t seen. (It’s on your list. It would’ve been on your list even if Jenna hadn’t given you a disappointed look when you told her you could get the references without having watched it.)

Laura excuses herself at some point in the conversation, heading out of the kitchen, and Brian waits an unsubtle half a minute before excusing himself to follow after her, leaving you alone. With a bunch of people you’ve never met. Rich capitalizes on Brian’s absence and asks you about where you went to school, and as you explain what you studied at UMaine, what you did for a living after college, you realize this isn’t the typical question-and-answer your friends’ parents do when they meet you.

Rich is asking you because you’re dating his step-son. He’s _interrogating_ you. Politely, but it’s happening. He’s got an elbow on the countertop and he’s giving you his full attention while the rest of the family keeps talking. Patrick’s moved to the stove to help Janet with something, but they’re not paying you any attention. Kristen’s starting to clean up breakfast. Oh God.

You fumble mid-sentence as you’re talking about pesticide runoff (oh God you’re talking about pesticide runoff, how did you get here, you genuinely don’t remember) and laugh, a little too high in your throat. “Uh, so, anyway. Got the job at Polygon and now I’m here.” At your coworker’s mom’s house, pretending you’re dating. Not the most obvious route to take. No clear connections here.

“You and Brian met at work?”

“Yeah, he uh, when he started. And it just went from there. Just your stereotypical office romance, except a not insignificant portion of it was in the public eye.”

 _How long have we been dating?_ You’d thought about when he’d come back from the UK that last time, missing his second watch and smiling too quickly at jokes, laughing a little too hard, like he was making up for something. He’d recovered in the following weeks, stopped checking his phone at the specific times he had before (when she’d text him, or he’d text her — scheduled, to make the whole long-distance thing work). _Since — September?_

Brian had touched his hand to his heart. _Since the moment I saw you I set to pining. You were just so hot in the midst of that mental breakdown about your very good Toad_.

A month after you’d filmed those final episodes of Please Retweet she’d started crying and you’d started fucking crying and you’d known you were getting divorced. There's a reason why that'd been the final episode. There's a reason you'd really pulled off that mental breakdown. _So since September._

Brian had laughed. _Sure. In September I finally convinced you to get all up on this._

“We started hanging out more and uh, eventually one thing led to another. He asked me to dinner — I thought it was a work thing. It was not a work thing. I didn’t pick up on that until the end.” You're useless at dating, need a fucking 2x4 to the head to know when a woman is flirting with you with intent. If it had happened, Brian would have had to grab your hand and tell you. Tell you right out.

 _I romanced the hell out of you at that dinner,_ Brian had said, and you'd laughed.

_And I didn't notice._

_Oh, you definitely had no idea how into you I was._

“We’ve heard so much about you,” Janet says, leaving Patrick to handle whatever's on the stove to come stand by Rich. Which, great. Both parents now, and Brian's still somewhere talking to Laura. _We're conning the entire Gilbert extended brood._ “And of course we'd watch the videos you two would put up, just the short ones though, like when you did the CSI investigation at that big conference you went to. Wasn't that fun, hon?”

Rich agrees it was fun. You smile in what you hope is a convincing way. The last time you’d met the parents of someone you were dating you were just out of college and you’d worn a tie and there was no readily available video evidence of either of you being jackasses. (You’d probably still talked about pesticide runoff.)

You feel your soul begin to leave your body. Just straight up exit the corporeal plane.

Which is why it's great that Brian reappears, even if he looks a little flushed, his eyes a little wide. “Were we going to the beach before food?” he asks, and he surveys the room, his gaze lingering on you for a second longer than everyone else. “I want to take Moose to the beach, get some quality best Gilbert time in.”

“I think we're done grilling your young man,” Janet says, and Brian looks at her like that possibility had never occurred to him, and then at you like he's about to meet you halfway on that breakdown you were investing in earlier.

“And I survived it,” you say, earning a good-natured chuckle from Rich. You join Brian in the doorway and you… you take his hand. It's warm, you have such fucking clammy hands, and when you rub your thumb over his knuckles he looks straight at you with those wide eyes. His ears are red. His lips are just parted. He looks the most unmoored you've ever seen him. “Beach?”

“Let's go to the beach, beach,” Brian mutters and then looks back at his family. “Any takers?”

Kristen shoves at Patrick's shoulder, tells him, “Go walk on the sand,” and Brian collects Moose and the three of you head out with the dog moving between you, smelling your legs and snuffling at your hands and pockets like he thinks you've got treats hidden away.

Half a block from the house in the middle of asking his brother how his practice is going, Brian takes your hand. You hold hands the entire walk. When he finally lets go, your hand's actually warm.

==

Laura shows up eventually, and her and Brian play keep-away with Moose and a piece of driftwood. You stick your hands in your pockets and watch, Patrick next to you, and you both laugh when Moose dives at Brian and he chucks the wood into the ocean. Moose stands at the edge of the water and stares forlornly into the waves.

“Go get it, Brian! Make it twice this week!”

Brian casts you an overdramatic glare and Patrick shifts next to you. “There's a story there.”

“Sometimes a man's job requires he throw himself into the sea.” You'd helped him record that, the end of the Castlevania video, where he’d walked into the Atlantic. He'd come out hollering about how cold he was, and you'd bit your fucking tongue trying not to laugh. It helped that you were also trying to keep your eyes on his face. “And sometimes a man throws himself into the sea because he thinks it'd be a good goof.”

“I have several questions, and yet, simultaneously, none,” Patrick replies.

“I can't hear you but I know you're having bad opinions!” Brian yells at you, and Laura tells him something that has him swatting at her. Moose barks and runs around them, nudging his head into their legs, and then he rushes towards you and Patrick, slowing to a trot until he’s leaning against Patrick like he’s had enough playing for the day.

“It’s okay, buddy, you can hang out with we olds,” Patrick says, rubbing behind one of Moose’s ears, and you drop into a squat so you can take Moose’s face in your hands and scritch his fluffy jowls, because fuck, what a good dog. He huffs happily and presses into your hands, and Patrick has to readjust so he’s not bowled over.

“He's a good judge of character.” You glance up and Patrick's smiling down at you. He huffs a laugh and looks back at his siblings tussling near the water. You follow his gaze. Laura's messing up Brian's hair. You can hear him laughing.

You're Patrick's age, and as far as he knows you're dating his little brother. You're the youngest — you always felt protective of Rhi, were, _are_ willing to go to the mat for her, but she told you once you'd never fully get it. That when Mom and Dad had let her hold you, squawling and red-faced and newborn-ugly, she'd known she'd do anything to keep you safe. (And then she'd pulled you down to her height and ruffled your hair.)

Patrick doesn't know you. He's maybe heard about you from Brian, seen you be a dumbass on the internet. But you've interacted for maybe 3 hours now, in no way long enough to make judgments about character. Not long enough for him to be so fucking chill with you, with all of this.

Besides, Moose is just a dog. You scratch under his chin, and he sits down on his haunches and lets out a loud sigh.

God, conning the Gilberts is — it's just too easy. At some point they're gonna reveal a banner emblazoned with WE KNOW! and ban you from South Carolina, because otherwise you're at Thanksgiving as Brian's boyfriend and they think you're just Goddamn great.

“The only reason any millennial wants a house is so they can own a dog,” Brian says, and you glance up and he's joined you and Patrick. His cheeks are pink from the ocean breeze, and his hair's an absolute bird's nest.

He looks…

He looks touchable.

Moose shifts away completely from Patrick to lean against you, and you grin, looping your arm around his neck. “It's true. Only an apartment prevents me from doing a dognapping.”

“You cannot dognap — don’t even joke.”

“My downstairs neighbors would get over it once they saw how fluffy he is.”

“I will tackle you on this beach, Pat Gill —”

“I'm not sure Charlie's a fan of dogs, but he'll adjust.”

“— Shove your face into the sand. Like a —”

“Ah, the Southern whitewash. Less cold than its Northern counterpart, but infinitely grittier.”

Brian laughs breathlessly and then lifts an eyebrow and rolls his shoulders back, giving you a smirk. “You lookin’ for some true Southern grit, pardner?” he drawls, finger-gunning at you, and you groan at him so you don’t laugh. You can’t encourage this. If you encourage it, he’ll trot it out when you least expect it. God, _trot_.

“Yeehaw, y’all,” Patrick says, “you two keep being cute. I’m gonna go put sand in Laura’s hair because I miss older brothering.” He walks off towards his sister, ducking down to scoop up a honest-to-God handful of sand, and your grip tightens in Moose’s fur, your smile freezing on your face. You forgot — you forgot he was there. Which, obviously there’s no problem with that. You weren't doing anything… And maybe that's it. That you weren't acting. And Patrick still thought…

But that’s fine. It’s good, actually. It means you’re really selling it. It means however you usually act is — if it’s viewed through the right lens, then it looks like you’re dating. Or flirting. It looks like you’re flirting.

“Did ya hear that, Pat Gill?” Brian asks you, and when you look up at him again his smile is just this side of strained, like he shared your thought processes. Like maybe he forgot Patrick was there too. “We’re cute.”

From twenty feet away you hear Laura scream and Patrick laugh, and you tear your eyes away from Brian’s bemused expression in time to see Laura try to heave her brother into the sea.

==

Rich’s son is married with two kids, and by the time you’re introduced to them all you’ve forgotten their names. They’ve gotten all the food laid out while you were at the beach, and you hear Rich talking about how his son’s going to repair the apparently God-awful fan in their bedroom, _God bless ‘em_.

You make yourself useful by gathering drink orders, grabbing sodas and beers and ciders from the cooler on the back porch, and Laura comes out to help around the time you're debating how many cans you can hold without party fouling into somebody's lap. She gives you a smile, asks, “How're _you_ holding up?” and without waiting for an answer takes half the load and heads back inside.

You stare at her back and try to figure her out. She's on board with the plan, obviously — she hasn't blown your cover. And it sure as hell seems like she's having fun razzing Brian about the whole shitshow. But she's also… it feels like she knows. Like she knows — like she's seen through you, figured you out better than you have. And there's no reason for her to buy into this then. If she knows. If she even suspects…

Fuck, you can’t go into an anxiety spiral on the back porch.

The only empty seat left at the table after you’ve delivered everyone’s drinks is between Brian and Janet, across from Rich’s son and his wife (God, what're their names?), and Brian beams up at you as you join them. He — shit, he must’ve been in the middle of eating, because you can see green beans in his teeth, and he hisses _what_ at you as you laugh when you sit down.

“You’ve got a bit, uh.” You take the bowl of mashed potatoes from Janet and spoon yourself a serving. When you look back at him he’s running his tongue over his teeth under his lips. “Potatoes, uh — babe?” That's normal. That is a normal thing to say.

Even if Brian freezes mid-lick and blinks at you owlishly, like he’s having trouble processing the words you told him, before glancing down at the bowl of potatoes you’re offering him. “Oh. _Oh_ , yes, yeah, thank you.” He doesn’t take the bowl, lets you hold it while he dishes himself up. “Uh, _suge_.” And then he winks over-exaggeratedly at you and passes the bowl to Laura.

You laugh again, because you started this. You dug this hole.

God, _suge_.

By the time all of the food has circled the table, your plate probably weighs ten pounds. There’s the old standards, obviously, and some rice dish Kristen made that’s been part of her family for generations apparently, and you freeze in the process of raising your fork to your mouth when you remember.

“Brian. Brian, if my dad ever asks if I brought fancy cheeses, tell him yes.”

“That sounds like a threat,” Brian says around a mouthful of sweet potato, “honeybuns.”

You eye him. He smiles at you. “Is this — uh, is this what we’re doing now? Sweetheart?”

Brian looks like he's waited for this day. “Where's your creativity, sugarplum?”

“Please stop,” Laura moans from Brian's left, and. Right. Right, there is a table full of people here, most of whom witnessed that even if they weren't paying attention, and. Well, okay. That's the point, anyway. Maybe this can be — maybe this can be fun, instead of mortifying. You know what annoying sisters is like.

You lean forward enough that you can see her. “Laura, please let me romance my nutter butter in peace.”

Brian wheezes out, “Oh my God,” and drops his head down as he shakes with laughter.

==

Around the time first rounds are winding down and people — well, you and Brian and the grandkids — are grabbing seconds, Rich’s son asks you about yourself, a low risk version of the polite grilling his dad had given you earlier. In between bites of frankly fucking delicious turkey and potatoes, you tell him about moving around as a kid, about settling in Maine where your dad's family lived. You're midway through talking about your dad's mom and her fucking stellar foray into local politics when you realize Brian's staring at you. He's got his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand, and in between his own bites of sweet potato he's been watching you with a look on his face that makes you lose track of what you were saying.

Your hand curls on your thigh — you imagine what it would feel like, to touch the edges of his smile.

And that’s when you also realize half the table was paying attention to you, and now they’re paying attention to you staring at Brian like an absolute dumbass. Everyone except Rich and his grandkids, who are talking about — God knows. The Wiggles? Are they still a thing? The kids are laughing, not at you. An important distinction. Not a given.

“Yeah, so, she was a great — a really incredible woman. A Republican when that meant something, you know,” you say and you wince, because you introduced politics at your boyfriend’s family’s Thanksgiving. You can’t imagine anyone here would... “Which is to, uh, just that she was.” Also — also, _Brian is not your boyfriend._ “Anyway.” Oh God. Oh God fucking damnit.

You clear your throat and wipe your hands on your jeans.

Brian’s still watching you, you can see him in your peripheral vision, and then you feel his hand wrap around your wrist. Squeeze. Linger there. His thumb starts to rub circles into your wrist bone.

“When that _meant_ something,” Rich’s son says, arching an eyebrow at Rich, and — shit, you’ve done it, you’ve ruined Thanksgiving, here we go. Time for some good old-fashioned baby boomer centrism. You’re never going to be invited back. Brian’s fingers are cool against your skin.

“Oh heavens, it’s _Thanksgiving_ ,” Janet says, laughing, and then Rich is laughing, and oh thank God, maybe this is just a long-standing topic of conversation. Maybe you didn’t actually fuck up.

Maybe the world doesn’t fucking revolve around you.

Patrick is laughing at the end of the table, and you look at Brian and he’s — he’s still smiling. His expression more resembles the look he gets on his face when he thinks you’re being a dumbass, but it’s. It’s always fond, even then.

“Were we watching the traditional musicals or playing the traditional games after we gorged ourselves? Those of us who aren’t watching _The Game_ , that is?” Brian asks the general table, and debate erupts over what everyone wants to do. He’s still looking at you. You hear _Candy Land_ thrown out from the grandkids (fuck’s sake, you have no idea what their names are); Laura mentions something about a Carpenters singalong; and Patrick grins at his wife while he says they should continue to argue about politics. (Kristen smacks him lightly on the arm.)

Everything's fine, and somehow that makes the fact you still feel like a dumbass worse. No one cares. You're still thinking about opening your big mouth and that moment when Rich's son tried to needle his dad. It didn't matter. Brian tightens his hold on your wrist and when you look at him again he slides his hand fully into yours, threading your fingers together. Under the table. Where no one can see.

“You wanna watch the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special with me?”

You want to be anywhere that isn't a roomful of people.

“Yeah, bring on the dubiously historically-accurate cartoons.”

==

You end up in a half-renovated living room, two of the walls bare drywall with just the worst Goddamn carpet you’ve ever seen in your life. There’s a weathered couch and several armchairs, and a battered coffee table that looks like they may have found it on the side of the road.

“Don’t tell Mom I let you see this room.” Brian maneuvers around where you’ve stopped near the doorway, and crouches down in front of you to rummage through one of the coffee table drawers. “It’s _an embarrassment_. Also I think all the furniture was left here by the previous owners?” He makes a hum of success and rises with a remote in his hand.

“Brian, what I’m hearing is there’s a not-insignificant chance somebody died in this room.” You follow him to the sofa and sit down, half-expecting a plume of dust to erupt around you — no offense intended to Janet, but, well, old shitty sofa. Dust lingers. “There is a not-insignificant chance I'm sitting where somebody gave up the ghost.”

“If anybody died anywhere it's where we slept last night, honeybear,” Brian tells you breezily, and he sits on the opposite side of the couch, turning the TV on. It's the only new thing in the room, with internet access and all that bullshit, and within moments he’s got the opening credits to the special playing.

You eye him. “We’re streaming this illegally off of YouTube.”

Brian presses a button on the remote so that the YouTube overlay pops up and points at the TV, like he was expecting this. “It’s not illegal. Look, the YouTube channel says it’s _for teachers_ , snookums.”

You snort, settling on the couch so you’re angled towards him, so you can see him better. “And what are you teaching me this afternoon, my, uh, my little cabbage? What am I gonna learn?”

Brian looks at you while the Charlie Brown theme plays. His brow furrows and he bites down briefly on his bottom lip, and then he turns towards you on the couch, his bent knee moving onto a cushion. He breathes in slowly.

“Well,” he says, and he draws out the end of the word. His tongue slides out of his mouth just enough you can see it. He ducks his head and pushes his glasses up, and you watch with — with horror, it’s horror coursing through your veins, horror that’s elevating your heart rate all of a sudden — as his mouth bends into a slow smirk.

This has been — it’s all been goofs. The pet names were goofs, they were fucking safe, what the _fuck_ is Brian — “What _are_ you gonna learn, Pat Gill?”

And then there’s screaming in the hallway and Rich’s grandkids barrel into the room, and you lean back on the couch (you were leaning forward, why the _fuck_ were you leaning forward?) while the boy makes a beeline for one of the chairs and the girl heads towards the couch.

“Uncle Brian,” she says seriously, and Brian’s entire demeanor shifts from — whatever the fuck he was just doing to attentive uncle. He sits up straighter and sets both feet on the floor, and she looks him square in the eye. “Move over. Um, please.” She glances at you, her eyes narrowing. The _I don’t want to sit by the stranger_ is implied.

Brian looks up at you and you — you do the straight man smile, you shrug with one shoulder. He scoots over towards you on the couch and she clambers up into the corner, and then you’re all watching the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special and Brian’s sitting a foot away from you.

(What the _fuck_ was that?)

Rich’s daughter-in-law — this is stupid, her name was… Cher? Karen? God, you’re useless — appears in the doorway and catches sight of her kids, and then she gasps when she sees what you’ve got playing. “Oh my goodness, I haven’t seen this in centuries. Hon, scootch.” She gestures to her daughter and then you’ve got, for fuck’s sake, you’ve got Brian pressed up along your side so four people can sit on a couch that somebody probably died on.

You shift further into the corner and lift your arm, settling it along the back of the couch so Brian can. So Brian can get more comfortable, under your arm. Which he does. He does, he moves in next to you, his shoulder jutting into your chest, his head resting against your shoulder. You can’t see his expression from this angle, and he isn’t looking at you.

He feels tense. He has to be sitting a little slumped like this, to fit.

On-screen Charlie Brown heaves a great sigh and drags his feet.

“Sorry about the audience,” Brian whispers to you, and you can’t really shrug like this, so you hum in response. At least with something on the TV nobody's asking you questions.

==

You end up also watching _It’s Christmas, Charlie Brown_ followed by _It’s Christmas Again, Charlie Brown._ Brian only moves to line up the next video, his shoulder digging into your rib cage when he shifts.

At some point you drop your hand from the couch to Brian’s shoulders. It’s more comfortable for you, less of a stretch, and he doesn’t seem to mind. You keep catching yourself rubbing your fingertips against his sweater. It's softer than it looks. Softer than you thought it would be.

At some point Brian's hand slides from his own thigh to yours. Nothing scandalous, just above your knee. His hand feels like it weighs 20 pounds. Every once in a while his thumb rubs gentle circles into the side of your leg.

Your entire fucking consciousness has narrowed to the boney press of Brian’s shoulder. The weight of his hand. The slow, inconsistent pressure of his thumb.

The special ends — you weren't really watching it anyway — and Brian doesn't move to put on something new. His grip is loose on your leg. He's breathing slowly. Evenly.

Karen (you're just calling her Karen now) glances your way and smiles, holding her finger up to her lips when she nudges her daughter and stands. Her son jumps off of his chair and gives a whoop as he runs out of the room, and you freeze, you don’t even breathe — like somehow the slow movement of your chest would be what wakes Brian up.

He does shift, humming quietly, turning so his face is angled towards you, his glasses unsettling on his nose. He breathes in deeply and his eyes flutter open, and he blinks up at you like he's trying to place you… and when he does, he smiles. He reaches up with the hand not trapped between you and touches your face, his fingers cold against your jaw.

“Hey handsome,” he whispers.

You glance at the empty room, at. At the TV, stalled on a list of recommendations of Charlie Brown-adjacent videos to watch. You look back at Brian's sleepy smile and you find your words, you — you remember how to speak.

“We're alone, you don't, uh, you can drop the act.”

His forehead furrows. He narrows his eyes and then presses them closed. Hard. Opens them again.

The smile disappears from his face. He plants a hand against the couch and pushes away from you. Repositions his glasses on his face. He opens his mouth and then closes it, and shoots you a thin smile before standing, shaking out his arms. “Right. Right! Sorry. How long was I asleep? It's probably second dessert time, come on, honey b — nope! Come on. There's definitely pie.” And in a flurry of movement he's gone, out of the living room and.

And for the second time today, you're left wondering what the fuck is going on.

==

Second desserts is a thing apparently. You're pretty sure there are pies here that weren't on the table two hours ago, and Rich plunks a fresh bowl of whipped cream in the center of the kitchen island while everyone's already dishing themselves up.

“Where's the pecan?” You only got pumpkin during dinner and obviously it was nothing to shake a stick at, but. “The New York Gilberts have, uh, talked a big pecan pie game.”

Brian's at the end of the island, talking to Karen, and you feel like you — like you fucked something up. He left the living room and he shot you a quick smile when you entered the kitchen, but he'd also insinuated himself between Karen and Kristen and you'd been left to find a place next to Laura, on the corner. Which doesn't mean anything, it's just pie. Dessert around the kitchen island.

It feels like it means something. (It feels like you're maybe a dumbass.)

“There's definitely more where this came from,” Laura says next to you, and takes a pie pan from Patrick to set in front of you. “And if you don't like it, you're outta the family. Out on the street.”

“It's true,” Patrick says over Janet's protests, “We'd pick you up and toss you out. You're noodley, so it'd only require maybe half of us present.”

“We're not going to toss you out if you don't like it,” Janet declares, coming close to hover over your shoulder. “I'll just be very sad. I may cry. Then you'll have made your boyfriend's mother cry.”

You look at Brian to catch his eye, to say something — funny, you guess, but he's still talking to Karen. Which is fine! You can be funny without Brian’s attention. “I try to stay on the good side of anyone bringing me pie.” Well, you can be mediocre without Brian’s attention.

Janet asks her grandkids about soccer and that’s the new conversation for your half of the table. Rich and his son are somewhere in the house, maybe watching football or maybe looking at the light they were thinking about fixing, and so you sit and eat the — admittedly damn fine — pie, and watch Brian gesture and laugh and wave his whole Goddamn body like he can’t possibly talk without movement.

Your phone vibrates in your pocket and when you pull it out it’s Rhi. You excuse yourself from the table and answer it once you’re in the much quieter hallway, and Rhi greets you with a perky, “Happy Thanksgiving, how’re the in-laws?”

You lean against one of the dourly-wallpapered walls and rub your eyes. You’ve eaten too much food today and you feel like you’ve run a marathon. An emotional marathon. “Who told you?”

Rhi doesn’t say anything for — too long, and then she says, “Patrick, what?”

She sounds… like she doesn't need you to answer the question. She sounds like she picked up on the context clues, on the resignation in your voice and y'know, the fact that you're at Brian's mom's house for Thanksgiving.

But she was joking. She was joking, obviously. And now you’re faced with either conning _your_ family, or telling your sister you’re conning the Gilberts. For a reason that didn’t make sense when you proposed it to Brian and isn’t going to make sense now, to your sister. For a reason that only makes sense if someone thinks about how much you want...

You pull the phone far enough away from your head that you can breathe out _fuuuck_ without her hearing you. And then you put it back to your ear. “Hey, Rhi.”

She's quiet. She's quiet, and then you hear shuffling like she's moving. Maybe going to her own hallway.

“Are you having a good time?” is what she asks you, and you suck your lips into your mouth and close your eyes, and breathe out a shaky exhale, and think about how much you love your big sister.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

And you can hear the smile in her voice when she tells you that's good, and then asks you about the food, and doesn't bring any of that up again.

==

You're somehow exhausted at 8:30. You get off the phone with your family — Rhi had passed the phone to Mom, then to Dad, then to Grandma, and then she'd stolen it back before you'd had to entertain all the cousins with how you'd gone to the _beach_ in _November._

“Make good choices,” she'd told you before she'd signed off, and she probably thought she was being cutesy but it's the best Goddamn advice you've received this week. You maybe should've gotten that advice on Tuesday, before you'd even packed.

You're in your pajamas, sitting on the pull-out and scrolling through everyone's well-wishes and holiday spreads on Instagram, when Brian walks into the den. He pauses just inside the door and then gives you a quiet _hi_ before heading to his suitcase.

“Hey,” you say, and then because this feels… bad, awkward in a way you never are together, continue, “Rhi called, wanted to wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving.”

He gathers up his clothes and stands, and just stays there, staring down at his suitcase. A weirdly long moment goes by, but when he turns around, he's smiling at you. “Oh yeah? How's Thanksgiving in Maine? Did they have to dig themselves out of 30 feet of snow to get to the oven?”

“At least.” You don't believe that smile. It's — it's good, you'll give him that, but you've been making this motherfucker smile for a year now and you know what his real smile looks like. And you know you fucked up in the living room after the cartoons, even if you don't know _how._ “They’ll have to start melting snow for water if they’re to last the winter.”

He huffs a laugh and drops his pajamas on the bed and then reaches for his shirt and. Stops. Looks up at you with — startled eyes, and he grabs his clothes again. “Shit, sorry, I’ll uh, I’ll be right back.”

“Brian, did I — I’m sorry.” You want to stand up but you’re afraid he’d just split. You want to reach out to him but. God, who knows what he’d do then. But you can apologize. Just in general. “I’m sorry, for being a total asshole.” Because you _are_ one, most days.

His mouth twists up into what you guess could be called a smile, but his forehead’s furrowed like he’s, fuck, like he’s trying not to cry? “Pat, you’re fine.” He tightens his grip on his clothes, holds them to his chest like they’re anchoring him. “It was just a long day, lot of people, you know? Sorry if I’m being — weird.”

Brian is the most blatant people person you’ve ever met and you know he’s lying. And he doesn’t want you to know he’s lying, or he wants you to just accept it. You made him feel shitty and he wants you to let it go. He’s not — he’s not the type of person to hold grudges. If you let it go...

You think about the relief you felt when Rhiannon didn’t push you, didn’t force you to explain what was going on. When she just let it slide.

You give him what you hope is an understanding smile. Because you’re shit at acting like you’re fine, too. “It’s cool. Family can be a lot.”

He sighs, and with it it’s like his whole body deflates, shrinks in on itself. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m gonna — I’m gonna go change and then maybe we can just chill in here.” He shoots you a wry smile. “I’m definitely not going to be obsessively re-editing the Castlevania video.”

“I’ll smother you with a pillow if you open it,” you tell him, and he laughs — a real laugh — and leaves with his clothes.

You sit on the bed and look out the open doorway, and imagine what you’d say if you weren’t a coward. What you’d tell him when he came back. _This was a bad idea, but not for the reason you think I think it’s a bad idea._ Or, _we really seem to be killing this pretending thing_. Or, _what if we didn’t “break up” in a couple weeks?_

But you’re a coward. And you want him to stop looking at you like you killed his dog (you wouldn’t hurt a hair on Moose’s head).

What you do say when he gets back is:

“So this is embarrassing, but Thomas got me started watching _Riverdale_ and if he finds out I haven’t finished it by the time the holiday’s over he’s gonna sic Allegra on me.”

And Brian looks at you for a long moment and then laughs, and climbs onto the bed. He’s a good two and a half feet away from you. The pull-out’s not that wide. “Do you understand what’s going on when you watch it?”

“Oh fuck you.” Which makes him laugh harder, like he’s releasing the tension from earlier. _Good._ You set your laptop between you, and use the movement as an excuse to shorten the gap. “Of course I don’t, Brian, I’m ancient.”

“Just don’t ask me what’s happening. I refuse to explain the dark machinations of Hot Archie.” Brian shoots you a quick smile, and you think maybe — maybe you are okay. Actually okay.

==

In the morning things are normal again, or as normal as they can be given the fucking Hallmark special scenario you’ve come up with for yourself. You sit next to Brian during breakfast, which is fruit and rolls with butter and pie. Mostly pie. You eat another slice of pecan. You can feel your stomach start to protest from the sugar, but you’re no quitter.

Rich and Janet have gone out with Rich’s son and his family to enjoy the town, so it’s you, Kristen, and the Gilbert siblings. (Which includes Moose, you’re starting to realize.) Laura is telling the table about the antics her kid gets up to when she nannies, and by the third description of what slime _really is_ , Patrick’s begging her to stop.

He rests his cheek against his palm and heaves a sigh. “No one needs this knowledge. Think of all the information you could store if you forgot this. Do you know that Einstein never memorized his home phone number because he didn’t want inconsequentials taking up valuable brain space?”

Laura waves her fork with a chunk of pear on it at her brother. From his bed near the French doors leading out to the back porch, Moose watches with rapt attention in case any of it flies off. “I am about seventy percent certain that’s apocryphal, and I will not be held to it.”

You stretch in between bites — comfortable, the pull-out is not — and drop your hand to the rear edge of Brian’s stool, your arm pressed against his back. He angles his head towards you, and you take a second to consider that your faces are mere inches apart before asking, “So are we spending the day entertaining ourselves, or is something planned?”

“Why, anything you want to do?” His voice is low, still rough from sleep. You can see grit in the corner of his eye, this close. “Slime not doing it for you?”

You waggle your eyebrows and soak in the way his eyes crinkle when he laughs. “Maybe I just haven’t met the right slime.”

Brian laughs out, “Gosh, what’s the _wrong_ slime like?” at the same time that Laura gasps and leaps off her stool.

“I know what we can do. Mom and Rich keep all the Christmas stuff in the garage, and as the rituals of Thanksgiving have been completed, we are now legally allowed to decorate.”

Patrick nods solemnly. “That _is_ what the law says.”

“Then it’s decided.” Laura smacks her fist into her palm. Moose perks up in his bed by the door, then ambles over to sit behind Brian and snuffle at your hand. “I’m gonna hang tinsel from _everything_.”

“I think we’re gonna spend today being jolly,” you tell Brian, and he reaches back to ruffle Moose’s ears.

“Not a day goes by I don’t have Christmas spirit leaking out of my eyeballs, Pat Gill.”

So you clean up breakfast — you help Kristen with the dishes, and she mercifully doesn’t ask you any questions about you, Brian, or you and Brian — and the Gilberts head outside to start bringing in the merriment.

“Janet hates tinsel,” Brian is saying when they come back minutes later. “You will be banished from her abode and made to sleep in the gutter.”

“ _You_ hate tinsel. Janet understands tinsel is vital to holiday cheer.” Laura sets a giant plastic bin on the floor and immediately takes off the lid. Patrick sets two more down next to it, and Brian sets three wreath boxes on the island.

“Tinsel,” you say from the sink, “is an ecological hazard, second only to glitter and microbeads.”

Brian makes an affronted noise from behind you. “Patrick, you can’t agree with me and disparage glitter in the same breath.”

You grab a dish towel from the front of the oven and wipe your hands as you turn around. Laura and Patrick have started unpacking their bounties, and Brian has a poinsettia wreath in-hand. He’s fixing you with a look of abject disappointment.

“All glitter that has ever been created will outlive humanity,” you tell him, and he hangs the wreath around his neck as he starts unpacking another. Kristen rolls her eyes and elbows you in the side, and tells you to go help while she finishes up.

“Glitter _should_ outlive us,” Brian says as you join him at the island. You take the second poinsettia wreath from him and put it around your neck to make him smile. He does. It soothes the last prickly bits of you that were still worried after yesterday. “That sounds like an ideal future: nothing but Twinkies and glitter.”

“And robots built to clean up the glitter. It’s what we deserve,” Patrick says, pulling out several nutcrackers and placing them on the island in a row: there’s a ballerina, a man in a suit with a briefcase, and a caroler. He picks up the briefcase nutcracker and heaves a sigh. “Mine is so boring in comparison.”

“You’re Mom’s little briefcase boy. You should own it.” Brian unpacks the third wreath — fake pine branches with bows tied throughout — and finagles it around the remaining nutcrackers on the island like they’re a centerpiece. “You can tell Moose is her favorite child because she didn’t reduce his traits to nutcracker form.”

Eventually the island’s an explosion of garlands, bows, and boxes, and you blame the sudden, overwhelming _Christmasness_ of it all for how long it takes you to process what happens next.

Patrick lets out a quiet _aha!_ while he’s digging through one of the boxes and bounces over to his wife, holding something green and red over their heads. She laughs at him and kisses his cheek, and he gives her a wide smile before kissing her more fully, if briefly, before chucking whatever he’s holding to you.

It’s mistletoe. He had grabbed mistletoe, and now you’re holding it. Standing next to Brian.

This is fine.

You look up at Brian and he’s staring at you with wide eyes behind his glasses, his mouth slightly open like he was about to speak.

The longer you stand here holding mistletoe, the weirder this is. It’s been ten fucking years since you caught it, and what you should do is turn to the assembled Gilberts and let them know it’s been a clever ruse — all of this has been a lie, a crafty lie, and you’re revisiting your days’ old idea to go sit in Brian’s car and stay there through tomorrow so you don’t have to endure their disappointment.

What you do instead is look at Brian. Look at his mouth, his gently parted lips, then up at his Goddamn pretty eyes.

 _Should we consider, uh_ , Brian had said that first night. He’d stared at the far wall and hooked his fingers together, and started twisting them in his lap. _How do we feel about things that aren’t… entry level? Middle school dating-level?_

 _Well, we_ are _already sharing a bed_ , you’d told him with a saucy accent and the cock of an eyebrow, and he’d laughed just this side of hysterically, and you hadn’t actually decided anything. Because you’re both fucking idiots. Because you’re both _fucking motherfuckers_ —

You raise the mistletoe above you and you tilt your head to the side and you lean in (not down, you don’t really have to lean down, she was _so_ much shorter than you and Brian isn’t) and press your mouths together, barely a kiss, barely anything at all.

You pull back from him and chuck the mistletoe towards Laura, who doesn't catch it because she's staring at you, her expression halfway to thunderous.

“Moose is gonna feel left out, Laura,” Brian says, and his voice sounds normal, and when you look back at him he looks normal, and you wonder for a surreal moment if you hallucinated the whole thing, and then Brian turns to you and his expression cracks open and he looks — an array of emotions, sad and angry and just a little bit hopeful, you think, you want, you...

“C'mon, let's hang these up,” he tells you, taking the wreath off his neck and looping his arm through it, and he heads out of the kitchen.

As you follow him you hear Patrick hiss, “What was that about?” and Laura shush him.

==

When you catch up with Brian, he’s halfway out the front door, positioning his wreath on a hook. He shoots you a pained look and adjusts the wreath, taking a step back to survey it. “This — Goddamn thing won't stay straight,” he snarls, and you think, as the youths say, _mood_.

“Brian…” You stand just inside the house, holding your wreath. It's some sort of unfair that you don't still feel the pressure of his lips against yours. That there's nothing, no lingering sensation.

“So I'm thinking yours can go on the inside of the door? So you get blasted with Christmas whether you're coming or going —”

“Brian,” you try again, because you just kissed him. Because you just kissed a _guy_ , a thing you have never done despite all the shitty opinions every dickwad you've ever met has shared about your sexuality. Because you're already forgetting what it felt like, it's already merging into a general memory labeled “kissing”, rote and un-noteworthy.

“Hey, can we not?” Brian looks up at you again, and his eyes are — fucking shining with tears, like he's about to lose it. He's holding himself tense as a spring, like he could rocket off into space at the slightest provocation. “Can we just — not?”

And it'd be easy to go along with that, to just _not_. To hang up wreaths and probably decorate a tree at some point, and to hold Brian's hand when it's thematically appropriate, and to not spend the rest of your life trying to remember what a five second kiss felt like.

“I should've asked,” you tell him, and he laughs, high-pitched and manic, and he starts nodding as he grabs your wreath and steps into the house, closing the door behind him.

“Yep. Yep, you probably should've, but mistletoe's gross like that, the nonconsensual fungus.” He starts positioning the second wreath on the inside of the door. His hands are shaking. “God, when did we decide to kiss under fungus? To let fungus dictate kissing behaviors? It was probably the Germans. That sounds German, fungus-prompted romance —”

It'd be easy. And miserable.

“Brian, can I kiss you?”

He freezes for a split second, and then his hands tighten on the wreath and you hear the soft crack of styrofoam, and Brian curses under his breath and lets go of it. “Funny! Funny guy, Pat Gill,” he says, and there's an emotion in his voice when he says your name that claws into your chest. Leaves you bloodied. “I think we should probably tell everyone, uh, the jig is up, and we'll all have a laugh about —”

He still hasn't turned around, fluffing up fake poinsettia petals on the wreath.  

“Brian.”

“— Brian and Pat and their dumbass plan, and then I can go back to quietly longing and you can go back to being obliviously unattainable and we'll all be significantly happier because —”

You wrap your hand around his wrist and he stops. He stops fluffing, he stops ranting, he — he holds his breath.

You try and process what, what it is he was saying mixed in with all the freaking out and your brain keeps tripping on. On. “Quietly longing?”

“Oh my God,” Brian breathes, and drops his head between his shoulders, against the door with a solid _thunk_ , and then he turns to face you. There's a round red mark on his forehead. His eyes are red, his whole fucking face is red, and he's looking at you like you're the last person he wants to see right now, which. Which he never does. And that — that means something. That means something, that he always...

“Brian, can I kiss you?” you ask again, and you can feel how tense his whole body is just through the hold you have on his hand.

“No one's here,” he says, his voice cracking miserably, and you, shit, you lick your bottom lip and step closer. You look at his mouth.

“I know,” you say, and he laughs, high in his throat.

“If you know then there's no reason to kiss me.” He swallows. You let go of his wrist, slide your hand up his arm. You cradle his neck with your palm, your thumb against his jaw, and he shudders in a breath, his eyes widening. “Pat.”

“You have to,” you start, and you feel the nerves kicking in, the absurdity of the situation catching up with you. You're not suave. The most romantic thing you've ever done was come up with a wrestling couples costume idea for Halloween one year, and now you're standing here and. “You have to tell me if I can, Brian, because I'm —”

“Pat...”

“— because I want to kiss you, but not because of a stupid fucking fungus —”

“You _what_.”

“— but because sometimes I look at you and I think, I think about what it’d be like to. To, fuck, to kiss you, okay —”

And Brian’s face does a complicated twist through several emotions, settling on something halfway between want and disbelief, and then he careens into you, his arms wrapping around your shoulders, his mouth finding yours. Your teeth clack together and you hiss in surprise, and he laughs (still too-high, slightly manic), and you grab at his back and hold him, keep him close, kiss him while he's laughing.

He tangles his fingers in your hair and licks at your Goddamn teeth, and you open your mouth and let him push into you, fucking — fuck his tongue in, and you stagger backwards with him until you're against the wall, and his nails are scraping against your scalp and you feel too aware of every inch of yourself.

“If you’re, if this isn’t, I swear to God, Patrick Gill,” he rambles against and into your mouth, and something in your chest swells with bright fucking happiness — bursts, bubbles over, and you’re laughing at him, at yourself.

You touch his face, the — the edges of his smile, like you've wanted to for, for fucking forever, and he looks at you and turns his head enough to, fuck, to kiss your fingertips. You say, tenderly, “You are the sappiest motherfucker,” and his eyes crinkle when he laughs.

“Gosh dang _mistletoe_ ,” he replies, and you slide your hand into his hair, it's getting longer, and your brain unhelpfully supplies you with the thought of _pulling it_ , how he'd react to that — and you hear the jingle of dog tags before Moose shuffles around the corner, heading straight for you both and sticking his nose between you, snuffling.

Brian looks down at him and you lean forward, resting your forehead against his temple, your hands dropping to his waist. Your mouth is next to his ear. If you wanted to, you could just — bite his earlobe, drag it between your teeth... Probably not in front of the dog. “We’ve got ourselves a chaperone.”

“Who’s the cutest cockbwocker?” Brian lisps at Moose. “You awe. _You_ awe.”

“Don’t patronize the cockblocker,” you say, laughing, and kiss the side of his mouth. Because — because apparently you can? Apparently you can.

==

Nobody says anything when you return to the kitchen after taking, what, 20 minutes to hang two wreaths? Nobody says anything, but Laura’s watching you, her eyes zeroed in on the grip Brian’s got on your hand. Moose bounds around the island and headbutts her leg, and she pets him without letting him distract her.

Patrick and Kristen are assembling an artificial Christmas tree next to the dining room table, and Moose leaves Laura to go and try to gnaw on it.

“Brian!” Patrick shouts, and your hand tightens involuntarily in his. “Come hold this while I stare at directions.” He holds up half of the tree, glaring at it, and mutters something about _shouldn’t be this hard_.

Brian sways into your space and plants a lingering, warm kiss on your cheek, before squeezing your hand and heading off to help his brother. You can feel yourself blush, can feel your entire fucking face go red, and Laura lifts an eyebrow at you when you join her at the island.

“So, uh, garlands?” You reach for a garland of silver tinsel and she grabs its other end and wriggles it around until you look at her. Which you do.

She raises her eyebrows. You raise yours back, the warmth of Brian's grip, the memory of his smile against your lips bolstering you in the face of skeptical sisters.

“So that looks like it went well,” she says obliquely, and you — shit, you feel kind of high. Brain chemicals, man. You grin at her, and her expression shifts from wary to… to a kind of bewildered happy. Which you can relate to — that’s your new fucking emotional baseline.

You glance away from her to Brian, who’s holding half of the tree and laughing, his whole body shaking. You can just see the edge of his smile in profile. Patrick’s wagging a finger at him and Kristen’s biting her lip, doing a miserable job of not laughing too, and then Patrick points at you. “Hey! From one Patrick to another, our chosen partners are bad. Get over here and save me from these hooligans who don’t respect process.”

Laura flips the garland at you, smacking you lightly, and you maneuver around Moose on your way to help — to help defend Patrick from your _chosen partner_. Who immediately passes you his half of the tree and then drops his hand onto your shoulder and rests his chin next to it.

“I’m not sure he’ll be of much help,” Brian says, his mouth inches from your ear, and you feel his proximity like an electrical current under your skin. His hand slides towards your neck, and he starts — the fucker starts rubbing his thumb against your skin, just above your collar.

Patrick narrows his eyes at you both and you feel — shit, does he suspect something? What would he suspect? “You’re allowing yourself to be beguiled by the enemy,” he says, making Kristen laugh, and you realize: oh. He just suspects Brian’s ensorcelled you with his dick. That’s all.

That’s… oh fuck.

Prior to this moment, everyone in this house except you, Brian, and Laura has assumed you and Brian have had sex. (And Moose, probably. It is unlikely that Moose had considered this.) You — you knew this. Janet _joked_ about this, but you’d moved directly past that revelation because you were in the midst of a slight mental breakdown and had hair-brained schemes to concoct.

Except now you’ve spent ten minutes with Brian canoodling under the guise of decorating for Christmas and you can feel his warm breath against your Goddamn neck and your entire world seems to take a moment to step back.

Review.

Reorient.

Because Brian’s hand is on your neck (you hate people touching your neck, you always have, your brain’s apparently forgotten this) and his mouth is near your ear and in a handful of hours you’ll be in the den alone with him and a bed and the only limitation placed on you is that you don’t wake up anyone else in the house.

Oh.

Oh fuck.

You know from prior experience (God, why) that you could throw Brian over your shoulder like a fucking sack of potatoes if you wanted to, and the fact that you don’t do this and immediately head to the den like some kind of stereotypical caveman type is proof positive you are a Goddamn gentleman and a scholar.

“I’m not owned, I’m not owned,” you mutter, Brian’s soft laughter filtering its way through the haze you’ve wandered into, and you elbow Brian (gently) in the ribs and roll your shoulder to (carefully) get him off you, and you glance at him — he's smiling, and you, you smile back, a quick flash of teeth — before joining Patrick so you can defeat this fucking tree and not think about _any other fucking_.

==

You manage to keep yourself busy with decorating. You also manage to keep yourself busy enough that you don’t pause to consider why you’re keeping yourself busy, which is a great side effect.

Janet, Rich, and the gang eventually get home, and Janet's delighted you've all taken the initiative on setting things up for Christmas, enough that she dismisses you from the kitchen while they get dinner ready.

The five of you file out into the hallway and Patrick yawns, stretching. “I'm gonna nap. Being jolly is rough work.”

“Yeah, dinner's in what, an hour? Lots of time to chill,” Laura says, and she looks at you and then at Brian, and you do not give her the satisfaction of reacting to her raised eyebrows.

“Ready, break!” Kristen claps her hands together (and then covers her mouth as she yawns too) and everyone peels off to their respective rooms in the house. Which leaves you and Brian standing in the hallway.

“Nap?” Brian asks you, except he's ducked his head and he's looking at you over the rims of his glasses, and the corners of his mouth are barely turned up into a smile, and you feel a rush of heat start in your gut and spread through the rest of your body until you're positive you're blushing.

“We could just lay down for a while,” you respond — and instantly know you've made a mistake, because Brian's smile twists into a smirk and he grabs your hand.

“Yeah, something's getting _laid_ ,” he says with a, with a frankly terrible accent that borders too close on Simone’s egg voice, and you’re torn between laughing and refusing to acknowledge him. That didn’t even make _sense_. It doesn't seem to matter, because you're still fucking attracted to him.

You don't remember much of the trip to the den. Brian's hand is warm and dry in yours (cold, clammy, just the worst) and he looks over his shoulder at you with an expression full of potential and you… that’s what you remember. The wicked curve of Brian’s smile. The way his eyes lock onto your mouth when you lick your bottom lip.

And then you’re in the den and Brian’s standing in front of you. The only light in the room is filtering in through the curtain, and it softens Brian’s edges, makes him glow. He’s fucking backlit. His hair looks even more feathery somehow, and you have to touch it — slide your fingers through the waves.

He drags his teeth over his lower lip and peers up at you over the rims of his glasses. “D'you wanna touch me, Pat Gill?”

“Gonna explain how I'm not touching you?” You tug at his hair gently and his eyelids flutter, his lips parting. God _damn_.

“You gonna let me touch you?” he says, and he lays his palm flat against your stomach, just above the waistband of your jeans — and his expression falters, his fingertips pushing into your skin. His mouth loses its sly curve, his eyes widening slightly, like there's some chance on God's green earth you're going to say no. Like you'll back off from this. Like he's only got so much confidence, and he's afraid of it being thrown back in his face.

Of you throwing it back in his face.

You cup his cheek, swipe your thumb over his flushed skin. “I can't fucking believe this Lifetime Christmas special bullshit worked in real life,” you tell him, and he laughs thickly, and you kiss him. Gentle at first, careful because... because you want to be careful with him, you want to treat him carefully. (Because he looks at you like he knows there’s something intrinsically worthwhile about you.)

His hand slides around your back, and you feel his cool fingers slip under your waistband, press into the top of your ass. He anchors you to him, walks you forward with him to the shitty bed, until his knees are buckling and — shit, the two of you tumble down, and there are unfortunate elbows and his knee just misses your dick. You let yourself collapse on top of him, laughing into his shoulder, and you feel… you feel so light, even if you’re probably crushing him. The duality of man.

You push yourself up with one arm and look down, and his grin’s fucking — transcendent. He slides his hands into your hair and curls his fingers, and when you tug against his grip he breathes in sharply, his eyes widening for a split second before his expression melts into something hot and dark. Something that — fuck, sinks beneath your skin and pools in your gut.

You can feel his dick through his jeans.

The thing is — you haven’t really thought about his dick. Specifically. About the fact that Brian comes with a dick. (Ba dum _cha_.) You’ve thought about holding his hand on the subway, the two of you swaying into each other’s space as the train speeds up out of the station. You’ve considered lounging in his apartment with his head in your lap, your fingers slowly winding around his hair while he affectionately debates dinner options with his sister. You’d even, uh, recently thought about sex in the abstract but it was just — sex. It was feeling good. The undefined caress of skin against skin. The general concept of orgasm, without any particulars spelled out, just hands and mouths and pressure and Brian at the center of it, smiling at you. You hadn't gotten as far as dick touching.

And the thing is: if you’d thought about it in any other context, you might have had to take a minute. Try to figure out how it made you feel, if you really defined those particulars.

Kind of easy to figure it out right now, with how every Goddamn inch of you feels like it’s been electrified. With how you’ve been fucking attuned to him since he first kissed you. With how much you _want_ —

“You gonna let me touch you?” you parrot back at him, and you mean it. Fuck, you mean it.

He holds your gaze as he licks his lips. His legs fall open on either side of you, _inviting_ , and your mouth falls open for — just a second, before you realize you’re doing it. Long enough for him to notice, for him to start laughing at you, and the sound’s so _happy_ (so loving, oh, _maybe_ ) that you let yourself collapse back on top of him, and then you’re laughing at his _oof_ and kissing his open, grinning mouth.

He pulls your hair, a bright kind of pain, and he rocks his hips up against you. Shit. You grunt — attractive, cool — but he responds with a low whine and that’s. You hadn’t thought about what he’d sound like. That’s a whole other dimension your tired brain hadn’t conceptualized, and you want to hear him again, you want to be able to catalogue every sound he can make.

“Touch me,” he tells you, and there's no shame in his expression, no embarrassment at being so Goddamn bold, and somehow that's doing it for you too: Brian so fucking self-assured, even about you. You flop to the side so you can fumble at the button of his jeans. This you've got experience in, everybody's jeans undo the same way, and he breathes out in a rush when you get them open, when you tug them down, when you find the gap at the front of his shorts.

And then your hand's on his dick.

It feels like a dick. There's no fucking fireworks, it's just your hand on Brian's dick, and you're not gonna compare it to yours because honestly you've never really thought about how your dick feels. You've never tried to qualify your dick. Maybe if you'd had some kind of long term plan for getting Brian naked you'd be more circumspect about this, about touching another guy's dick for the first time, but the best your brain is doing right now is _smooth_ and _hot_ and _fuck_. Because fuck.

You wrap your fingers around the length of him and he shudders when he breathes out, and his hand grabs at your shoulder and you can feel his nails digging in, and you're — curious. You drag your thumb over the head of his dick, fucking velvety soft, and he yanks you forward, finds your mouth and kisses you, shoving his tongue into your mouth like he's. Like maybe that's what he'd do with his dick, if you let him. You moan into him and he rocks his hips into your grip, and your tone drops, gravelly, because you're pressed up against his thigh like this. Because your jeans are too tight, because every time he moves, every noise he makes, it's all throttling through you.

“Pat, fuck, I've been, c'mon,” he mumbles against your teeth, his hand finding your hair again and pulling, and you can't believe you're gonna come in your pants on Janet's pull-out couch like you're a Goddamn teenager.

“ _You_ come on,” you tell him petulantly, leaning into the trope, and he's laughing as he comes, his body going taut underneath you, his hands tugging at you, and your glasses are askew and your mouth is pressed in the sloppiest kiss to his jaw and you squeeze his trembling dick when you come too.

You lie there in the quiet of your breathing, until he hums and kisses your forehead, your cheek. He lets go of your shoulder and slides his hand down your chest, just this side of ticklish, and when his fingers drag over the front of your jeans and then stop, you can see the edge of his grin.

“ _Gosh_ ,” he says, and you pull your head up enough to see his beaming face. “Really? You are _so_ into me.”

You laugh, the sound bursting out of you, your whole body riding the high of oxytocin combined with how fucking fond his voice is, and you drop your head down to his shoulder. And you laugh. You are _so_ into him.

==

You don’t have time to shower before dinner, which feels like a mistake. (You go to the bathroom and make yourself presentable. You change your underwear. You try and get your hair to lie flat.) Moose lumbers around the kitchen and stops to sniff at your leg and you feel your spine try to wrench forward and climb out of your mouth, but Patrick calls him away before you can fully fucking die. Brian’s hand is pressed into the small of your back, his shoulder bumping into yours.

His mouth is close to your ear when he asks, “You good?” and you nudge him with your elbow. You sit down next to him and you eat. Patrick makes a _Fresh Prince_ joke and you join him in trying to convince Brian to watch it. You eat more. You listen to Brian and Laura rant about the wiring in their apartment, and chime in when Brian prompts you to, about the stupid outlet hanging out five feet above the floor.

It's all so... so fucking easy.

You help Janet with the dishes after dinner, standing shoulder to shoulder while she cleans and you rinse and dry. Her kids are making a ruckus by the tree — somebody found a copy of Telestrations, and you'd squeezed Brian's shoulder and told him you were gonna sit this one out. He'd turned a blinding smile on you and your heart had just about stopped in your chest, and you’d drifted into the kitchen feeling overwhelmed. Janet, taking pity on your dumbass self, had pressed a dish towel into your hands and told you to join her at the sink.

“I’m so glad you could make it,” she tells you halfway through the job, while she’s scrubbing at the dried crust on the bottom of a pie pan. Her tone is so gentle when compared to the way she’s just fucking having at that pan. “I know I said, but — when Brian mentioned your coming down, I could just hear how excited he was. He’d been nursing that crush on you for ages, and I didn’t _press_ , I wasn’t going to be a busybody, but oh, I knew.”

There’s a degree of discomfort to being told this, to gossiping — is it gossiping? It feels like privileged information — about Brian. About Brian and his feelings. His feelings about you, which he’s had for a while, which he’s managed to communicate enough on the fucking down low to everyone that they thought you were a sure thing.

You didn’t know you were a sure thing. You didn’t know being a sure thing was an option.

You’re not going to have a crisis — you’ve been processing your Goddamn sexual reawakening for a while now, at least since the first time months ago that Brian turned that megawatt smile on you and his voice went warm and syrupy when he called you _Pat Gill_.

(You also came an hour ago with his tongue down your throat and your hand on his dick, so you’d argue you’re doing a damn good job coping.)

“Thanks, thank you for uh, welcoming me into your home,” is what you manage to say, and she beams at you as she passes over the pie pan. You smile back at her helplessly, just fucking overloaded by the strangeness of the situation, how _grateful_ you feel. You want to convey more, you want to somehow let her know that she matchmade this into existence, that part of you feels indebted — and God, how are you going to talk to your mom again. She can never know she was partly responsible for you figuring your shit out. She’d be _impossible_.

When you bring Brian home for Christmas — because she asked you to, she wants to have him home for Christmas — you’re going to have to have your story ironclad. That you were together before Thanksgiving, that you hadn’t told your parents yet because you’re you, because you keep things under wraps until you can’t anymore. Rhi can be in on it. Conning the Gills can't be any harder than conning the Gilberts.

You glance back over your shoulder, finding Brian where he's seated by the tree, his head bent over his lap while he furiously doodles something. The timer runs out and he cackles, his whole body shaking, and Janet hums and draws your attention back to her — and she's smiling at you. Her eyes look wet. “Oh, the way you look at him,” she says softly, and she turns back to the dishes, and you watch Brian for… for a while longer. Until she passes you another glass.

==

You wake up, and you can tell it’s early. Grey light paints the room in cool tones, like South Carolina’s finally figured out it’s winter. Brian’s foot is hooked over your ankle, and he’s turned towards you, his face smushed against his pillow. The moment feels too still to interrupt, too quiet. His lips are gently parted. You can hear each breath he takes, his nose blocked by bedding, and somehow even that feels precious.

You’ve seen him sleep, even outside the last few days. You’ve roused him by jostling his shoulder or yelling his name from across the room, laughing when he jerked awake and blinked rapidly. You’ve never reached out, drawn your thumb over his cheek, over his stubble. You can do that now. So you do, you follow the curve of his jaw with your fingers. You touch his chin, the corner of his mouth. You rub your thumb across the stubble that’s threatening to turn into something terrible above his lips. You watch his eyelashes flutter just before his eyes open, and his forehead wrinkles before smoothing out as he — as he remembers. And he smiles, tender, still mostly asleep, and shifts on the bed towards you until you’re pressed together, until his face is inches from yours.

“Good morning,” he whispers, and the deja vu you experience — the memory of, shit, two days ago? Brian lying across from you, soft and warm and completely untouchable — contrasts with now. With your hands on him. With your legs tangling together, with his fingers curling in the front of your shirt.

You cradle the side of his face in your hand and think about how easy it would be to kiss him. To drag him close to you with purpose, to wake him up fully with your hands down the back of his shorts, your knee between his thighs.

“How'd you sleep?”

He grimaces and runs his tongue over his teeth, underneath his lips. “I miss my bed. My neck’s had better mornings.” He works one of his fingers down the front of your shirt, rubs his knuckle over your collarbone. It makes no fucking sense, how that simple touch makes every single hair on your body stand up on end, how it makes your face flush — you can feel it, your cheeks heating. His expression goes sly. “How’s everything of yours, old man?”

“My back’s shitty, Brian,” you reply, because it’s true, and because it’s not admitting your dick’s getting hard. He doesn’t need encouragement. The last thing he needs is to know how much that mischievous smile does it for you, because then you’ll never know peace. “I’m not sure about this look,” you tell him instead, a distraction, dragging your thumb over the top of his lip, the beginnings of his mustache. “It’s very 70s bank robber. Wide lapels. Big belt buckles. Loud prints.”

“You’re saying all this like none of that appeals to me,” he replies, and he just — pushes you onto your back and climbs on top of you, his arms on either side of your head, his body pressing yours down against the truly, heinously uncomfortable mattress. “I bet you'd like it if I sucked you off.”

Your close your eyes so you don't have to look at his smug face. “You don’t — overcome fashion crimes with bribery sex.” And he sounds so _eager_.

“O _ho_ , that is where you're wrong, Patrick.” He slithers down the bed, down your body, God, and has his fingers in the waistband of your shorts in seconds, and he looks up at you, his eyes wide and dark in the mid-morning light and he. He licks his lips. “Wanna see how right I am?”

You do. There’s no point in pretending otherwise. You tell him you do. So he shows you.

==

You load your and Laura's stuff into the car, making space for the aluminum pans of leftovers that Janet insisted you take back with you.

“Brian, we'll leave without you!” Laura calls over her shoulder while she unloads the stack of leftovers, and you hear him clamber down the front porch. He hipchecks you when he makes it to the trunk, dropping his duffel bag in and almost upsetting the… mashed potatoes, you think.

“Watch it, dumbass,” you tell him fondly, and he snorts and resettles his bag so it's not endangering anything. You ask, “That everything?” and mime shutting the trunk.

Laura nods. “If we don’t close it, Janet will find a way to fill it with more turkey.”

You pause. “And pecan pie?”

“Oh my God,” Brian exhales, and turns to holler towards the house where Janet's standing, holding Moose back from running into the driveway and getting in everyone's way. “Mom! You've beguiled him!”

“I've what?” she shouts back, and Moose strains against her hold and whines. Brian’s hand finds yours and squeezes once before letting go to slam the trunk closed himself, and then he’s rushing the front porch, careening into Moose and ruffling the fur around his face.

Laura swings the keys on her finger and leans against the car, and you lean back too, stretching your legs since you definitely won’t be able to for the rest of the day. You’ll probably just sleep in the back anyway — Laura and Brian had energetically discussed the need for a second go at their _High School Musical_ singalong over breakfast this morning, and Patrick had grasped your shoulder firmly and told you it was socially acceptable to pass out and not engage. Laura had cackled, said, “We have video evidence of Erik doing _exactly that_.”

You feel like you should… thank her, maybe. For not blowing up your spot. Regarding your and Brian’s stupid ass plan, obviously, but also. You think she knows. You think she _knew_ , somehow, about your crush, even before.

You inhale slowly, don’t look directly at her. “Thank you.” You don’t say what for, because you’re not sure you could voice it. (For letting you figure your own asshole self out.)

She catches the keys in her hand and shoves them into her pocket. “Don’t mention it, Brian’s Pat,” she says, and that still gets you, _Brian’s Pat_ , and your soft, stupid heart is still aching in your chest when she bumps your shoulder. “C’mon.”

And you follow her to collect Brian. _Your_ Brian, unbelievably. Fucking miraculously.

==

The drive back is long and boring, and Laura and Brian _do_ engage in the threatened _High School Musical_ singalong around the 3-hour mark. Brian looks at you when they start, a wide smile stretching his face, and you give him the satisfaction of groaning dramatically and kneeing the back of his seat.

He reaches back halfway through the third song and brushes his fingers against your jeans, and you snag his hand, squeeze his fingers. It's gotta be awkward, wrench his shoulder a little, but he keeps his hand there until the next stop, when Laura announces Brian’s moving to the backseat because she doesn't want to have to “see it”.

You fall asleep with your head on his shoulder, while he hums whatever song they're up to in _HSM2._

When you get back to your apartment however many hours later, you text your mom:

> _Made it home_  
> _When do you want us for Christmas_  
> _Has anyone claimed the guestroom with the double bed_

Her responses come in quick succession:

 _> Its yours ofcourse!!_  
> _were the gberts lovely? i bet they were all lovely! tell brian his familys lovely!_  
> _your father can’t wait to meet him_

Followed by a series of emoji: a Christmas tree, a ham, a kiss, and a firework.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise thought you'd heard the last of ~~me~~ this fic
> 
> anyway i had this brian pov scene bouncing around in my head and heyo here it is

_Laura excuses herself at some point in the conversation, heading out of the kitchen, and Brian waits an unsubtle half a minute before excusing himself to follow after her, leaving you alone. With a bunch of people you’ve never met._

 

==

 

Laura doesn't say anything. She doesn't _have_ to say anything — she almost smacks you with the bathroom door because you're standing right outside it, waiting, rocking your weight between your feet, and the look she levels you scours you down to the sinew and frankly. Frankly, the thing is.

"The thing is," you start, and she crosses her arms. How does she do that — that thing with her face, where she makes you feel like a irredeemable dumbass with like, what her eyebrows do. But you're not — okay, you _are_ , you sort of deserve it, but also, "It wasn't my idea."

"Oh my gosh," she breathes out, and her eyes roll back in her head and then her head tips back like the force of her eyes was too much for it to stay stationary, and you hold up your hands placatingly even though she can't see them because she's judging the ceiling now.

"I swear, that's not, that's not really a defense because I _agreed_ to it, obviously, but."

"Brian," she says, and you stop rambling. You suck your lip between your teeth and hook your hands together and dig your fingernails into your palms, and you think about waking up next to Pat and how dulled he'd looked, not like — rounded out, maybe, all his sharp edges made soft in the cold light of morning, and how for a second he was more touchable than usual, even if he's always... He's always a little touchable, always lets you in just enough but he's also like picking up a knife blade first: you have to be careful. You have to know how to handle him. If you hold too tightly you're gonna slice your fucking fingers off and it'll be your own fault.

(You're gonna get hurt.)

"You can't say anything I haven't already thought of," you say, and you clear your throat because you sound sick, or like you've got something caught, or. You can feel your face start to burn. Your eyes. "Because I have _thought_ about it, I have been thinking about it, I don't know what Mom was thinking, she should know Pat's not —"

Which is a mistake, phrasing it like that, because Laura's laser stare is back on you and you really preferred it on the ceiling?

"Because obviously neither of us are, uh." You make an attempt, but Laura knows you. She's your sister, obviously, but she's also your roommate which means she sees you every single ding dong day and she knows exactly what baggage you're lugging around regarding one Patrick Gill. She _knows_ , and she's been asking you thinly-veiled questions about your intent regarding said Patrick Gill since you revealed he was coming along for Thanksgiving, y'know, to meet the family (you'd said it like that, all jokey, and then you'd wanted to sink into the ground but you'd forged on ahead about how normal it was to invite _friends_ and be a good _friend_ because you didn't want to give her the _satisfaction_ ), and you've kept your cool because you're a Goddamned adult but you're not perfect, you've got cracks, there have been cracks in your platonic exterior, and.

"Please just," you say, and you push your hair away from your sweaty forehead (you must be so red, God, you don't have to admit _anything_ , you look _guilty_ ) and screw your eyes shut and let out a breath. "Please be chill about this."

"It was his idea?" she finally asks, cool as a cucumber, and you laugh, a little high-pitched and pathetic.

"I was just gonna say something and he didn't want to embarrass Mom," you say, and it sounds stupid even as you explain it, _why would Mom be embarrassed_ , it _sounds_ like an excuse but it can't be. It isn't. Pat's just — being thoughtful. Going out of his way to be thoughtful. To let you hold his hand.

There's no reason on God's good green earth why this would be a reasonable thing for anyone to suggest, let alone for _Pat_ to, but you've been standing outside this metaphorical window for months now, hands pressed against the glass, subsisting on the ambient heat of Pat on the other side, smiling and quick-witted and dense (straight, straight, just incalculably straight) as a fucking brick, and Pat is never going to open the window, let alone the — the metaphorical door, so this is just. It's just weird. It's just Pat being thoughtful in that way he has, where he thinks about other people's feelings and sacrifices his own.

(There's an alternative to this. A better explanation. You're gonna get hurt.)

"And I know what that sounds like," you get out before Laura can voice her opinion, which you can tell by the scrunched up look on her face she's got ready to go, and you push at your hair again and shake your head. "But he's —"

"A dumbass," Laura interrupts, her tone heavy with meaning, not all of which you're capable of parsing right now.

You swallow. "I agreed to it."

"Because —"

"Because I agreed to it." Because you're the worst. Because the idea of pretending for a weekend was too good to pass up. Because he lets you hold his hand.

She shakes her head and throws her hands up above her head. "I'm not gonna tell," she groans, and you want to hug her but she's already headed back to food.

"And I'm not gonna say I told you so," she calls back to you, and she won't have to. You already know you're gonna get hurt.

 

==

 

_Which is why it's great that Brian reappears, even if he looks a little flushed, his eyes a little wide. “Were we going to the beach before food?” he asks, and he surveys the room, his gaze lingering on you for a second longer than everyone else. “I want to take Moose to the beach, get some quality best Gilbert time in.”_

__

__

_“I think we're done grilling your young man,” Janet says, and Brian looks at her like that possibility had never occurred to him, and then at you like he's about to meet you halfway on that breakdown you were investing in earlier._

_“And I survived it,” you say, earning a good-natured chuckle from Rich. You join Brian in the doorway and you… you take his hand. It's warm, you have such fucking clammy hands, and when you rub your thumb over his knuckles he looks straight at you with those wide eyes. His ears are red. His lips are just parted. He looks the most unmoored you've ever seen him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy late turkey day ♥♥♥♥

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!! i'd love to hear from you in a comment below. :)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [turkey pie kiss firework [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19731097) by [Opalsong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Opalsong/pseuds/Opalsong)




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